China has mapped out an ambitious program to clean up the
pollution-plagued Yangtze River which, if successful, is expected
to improve water quality for two-fifths of the nation's inhabitants
by 2010.
According to the program, water pollution in the Yangtze River area
will be remarkably reduced within eight years, while most of the
water sources for drinking will be greatly improved.
The program, approved by a team of experts at a meeting in Beijing
Sunday, is the first time 16 provincial administrations along the
waterway have united in a clean-up campaign.
The administrations have worked on their own plans to tackle such
water pollution since the 1980s. The individual campaigns,
sometimes conflicting and regionally biased, often led to dissent
and conflict among different provinces, undermining the water
clean-up campaign as a whole.
This time, the plan is more clearly designed, officials said. It
builds on a comprehensive survey of the drainage disposal ability
and wastewater discharge in different sections along the river.
The plan, for the first time, divides the waterway into four major
sub-areas - the protection zone, buffer zone, exploitation zone and
reserve zone - in terms of major functions of local water
resources.
In
addition, the exploitation zone is also further divided according
to different functions for usage, where water resources are used
respectively for daily life, industry, irrigation, aquatic
cultivation and sightseeing.
Each area can be equipped with different measures of
anti-pollutions, requirements on exploration of water resources and
water quality monitoring.
The river can, therefore, be explored for its economic potential
without being at the expense of water resource contamination.
At
the meeting, experts said the program covers the largest drainage
area, involves the most advanced technologies and, therefore, will
be most effectively implemented.
The Yangtze River, the third largest river in the world and the
longest in China, has long been polluted by industrial and domestic
waste.
The overloaded human activities on the waterway have led to growing
soil erosion, making it vulnerable to floods.
Economic toll is on the rise. One prime example was in 1998 when
the river generated one of the worst flood disasters in the nation,
involving 160 billion yuan (US$19.3 billion) in economic
losses.
Experts have warned the growing pollution and water-related
disasters may put a dent on economic growth in such business
epicenters as Shanghai, sitting right at the estuary of the Yangtze
River.
Ning Yuan, director of the Water Resources and Hydropower Designing
Institute under the Ministry of Water
Resources, said the program is the first of its kind to give a
general outlook for protecting water resources within the Yangtze
River drainage area as a whole.
The program suggests further efforts should be made in the fields
of soil and water conservation and river channel improvement, as
well as pollution monitoring and control.
Liu Changming, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said,
to ensure sound water quality of the Yangtze River is of urgent
importance, as the "south-to-north" water diversion project and
water retaining project at the Three Gorges will soon be
launched.
However, experts said the public should be educated about pollution
and the dangers to the Yangtze River.
One suggestion has been to set up a "Yangtze River Day" in October,
in what would be an annual event for people to relate pollution on
the river with how it affects their lives in China.
(China Daily February
25, 2002)