Water Environment

Pressure

In the past decade, the water environment has been seriously contaminated in China. The pollution intensity of natural water bodies was aggravated and the pollution areas were also expanded. The main causes lay in the greatly increased demand for water resources, resulting from the rapid development of industry, township enterprises and modern agriculture, as well as insufficient and inefficient prevention treatment measures. Low reserve capacity, uneven distribution in terms of time and space, and difficulty in development and utilization are the main pressures on water resources in China.

During the development of recent decades, large amounts of cities and various economic development zones have formed along the coast. At present, the marine industry has become a new area of growth for economic development in the coastal regions.

In 1997, seven large river systems, lakes, reservoirs, underground water in some regions, and coastal waters were polluted to varying degrees. The arid and semi-arid regions in the north as well as many cities suffered from serious water shortage. In 1997, the total amount of discharged wastewater was 41.6 billion tons in which the total amount of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) was 17.57 million tons.