The Central Development Region occupies 31% (10.6 thousand km²) of the total area and 36% (1 million) of the total population of the Republic of Moldova. The study region comprises 599 localities, including 14 small and medium-sized cities, and the urban population constitutes only ≈ 20%. The pronounced rural and agrarian character, the current socio-economic difficulties and the massive depopulation of the rural area have conditioned a reduced access of the population to the public sanitation systems and an increased impact on the aquatic ecosystems and on the population health.
At the present, in the study region are operate only 68 public centralized wastewater disposal systems, of which 16 − in urban areas and only 48 − in rural areas. The length of public sanitation systems is about 750 km, of which 521 km (70%) - in urban localities. Only 11% of the region's population has access to public sewerage systems, including ≈50% in urban area and only 3% in rural area. In the region operate only 30 wastewater treatment plants, including 14 stations − in the urban area, and the total operating capacity of the respective stations does not exceed 10 thousand m3/day. The low level of utilization of the treatment plants is conditioned both by the economic and demographic decline, as well as by the high degree (40%) of wear of the sewage and treatment plants.
The total volume of wastewater discharged through centralized sewerage networks is 4.1 million m3, including 3.6 million m3 (≈90%) in the urban centers of the region. Over 60% (2.5 million m3) of discharged wastewater is received from households. The enterprises discharged 673 000 m3 (16%) of wastewater, of which more than 90% (635 000 m3) from urban areas, which are concentrated most industrial and service companies. The budgetary organizations are widespread also in the rural area, and their volume of discharged waste water constituted 619 thousand m3, including 405 thousand m3 or 2/3 − in the urban space.