Chongqing is a heavily polluted industrial megacity in China. We have estimated the environmental cost of water pollution in Chongqing. Limiting our inquiry to the resource cost, i.e. real resources spent or production possibilities foregone because of water pollution, our estimate equals 1.2 per cent of Chongqing gross product, with a subjective 95 per cent confidence interval of (0.9–1.5). Damage to agriculture constitutes the largest share of costs, 56 per cent, while damage to health and damage to industry make up 20 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively. The cost estimate of 1.2 per cent, which employs the human capital approach, is sensitive to the valuation of statistical lives. A calculation using willingness-to-pay for avoiding premature death sets the total cost at 4.3 per cent of Chongqing gross product.