Official report reveals half of China’s top 10 rivers polluted
Print Edition
THE water in half of China’s top 10 river systems is polluted, and about 60 percent of the nation’s underground water is of poor quality, a report has revealed.
Among the 10 rivers and their tributaries, the Yellow, Huaihe, Haihe, Liaohe and Songhuajiang rivers were polluted, with north China’s Haihe the worst affected, reaching moderately polluted levels, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, citing the government’s 2013 China Environmental Situation Report.
About 9 percent of the water in these river systems was rated class V, the worst level.
The 1,050-kilometer Haihe flows through Tianjian and neighboring areas before emptying into the Bohai Bay.
More than 39 percent of the Haihe system was class V. All its tributaries had reached the severely polluted level, according to the report.
“Industries featuring high energy consumption and high pollution such as steel, coal, chemical industry, construction material and power are being developed intensively along the Haihe basin, which has already suffered from very severe water environment, and local authorities and companies turned a blind eye to the environment,” said Wang Jinnan, a deputy director with the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s environmental planning department.
Water in the Yangtze, China’s longest river which flows into the sea near Shanghai, and in the Pearl River Delta, was of relatively good quality, according to the report.
Of 4,778 monitoring sites for underground water nationwide, about 60 percent recorded poor or extremely poor water quality.
Among 31 large freshwater lakes across the nation, 17 were moderately or lightly polluted.
Dianchi Lake in southwest China’s Yunnan Province was seriously polluted.
In addition, a large number of lakes including Poyang and Dongting, China’s largest freshwater lakes, are shrinking significantly, according to the report.
Chinese authorities released a joint plan last year on water conservation of Chinese lakes with relatively good water quality in a program lasting to 2020.
Among the nine major bays in China, the Liaodong, Bohai and Jiaozhou bays had poor water quality, and the mouth of the Minjiang River and Hangzhou Bay was of extremely poor water quality.
More than 300 cities in China suffer from water shortages, some at serious level, according to UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency for human settlements and sustainable urban development.
“The contradiction between supply and demand of water resources in China will get more acute with the intensified effect of social and economic development and climate change,” said Chen Ming, a deputy director with the Ministry of Water Resources.
Chen said there is an annual water shortage of more than 50 billion cubic meters in China, with consumption reaching nearly 620 billion cubic meters a year nationwide.
“With the population expansion and economic development along river basins, particularly the development of tourism, mining and fish breeding and poultry raising industries and urbanization, the pressure on water conservation is growing,” said Zheng Binghui, deputy director of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences.
Villagers in Xiaozhuzhuang Village in Cangxian County, Hebei Province, were in panic after they found the water pumped from underground had a strong smell and showed iron oxide red color, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.
Several hundred chickens died after drinking the water, local residents said.
New chemical plants discharged pollutants into rivers and dumped waste into nearby ditches, according to Xinhua.
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