In 2000, the areas of marine environment with the water quality of Grades II, III, IV and IV above were 102,000 square kilometers, 54,000 square kilometers, 21,000 square kilometers and 29,000 square kilometers respectively. The pollution was serious in the offshore and coastal areas of the coastal provinces (autonomous regions and the province-level municipalities), including Shanghai, Zhejiang, Liaoning, Tianjin, Jiangsu. The main pollutants in the marine waters are inorganic nitrogen, phosphate, petroleum, mercury and lead.

Water Quality of Offshore Marine Areas

Among four major marine areas of Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, East China Sea and South China Sea, the offshore of Bohai Sea has an obviously abated level of pollution which is still relatively high. The pollution of the offshore of East China Sea is being aggravated and the water quality offshore the Yellow Sea and South China Sea is basically maintained normal. The sequencing of pollution levels of four major marine areas is the East China Sea, Bohai Sea, the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea.

Comparison of Percentages of Marine Water Quality Beyond Grade III in Four Major Marine Areas by Years

Red Tide In 2000, China recorded 28 red tides that occurred in the marine areas of China, 13 more than in 1999. The area affected by red tides amounted to more than 10,000 square kilometers. Among all this, 11 red tides happened in the East China Sea, covering an area of over 7,800 square kilometers; 7 in the Bohai Sea, covering an area of 2,000 square kilometers; 4 in the Yellow Sea, covering an area of over 800 square kilometers and 6 in the South China Sea, covering an area of 50 square kilometers.

The marine areas with a high frequency of red tides are the offshore and coastal areas of Zhejiang, Liaoning, Guangdong, Hebei and Fujian and the coastal areas of central Zhejiang, Liaodong Bay, Bohai Bay, Hangzhou Bay, Pearl River Estuary, Xiamen and the northern part of the Yellow River. The organisms causing red tides are mainly plankton.

Oil Spill According to an incomplete statistics, about 10 oil spills occurred in the marine areas of China in 2000. Among them, the most serious one happened on November 14 when a foreign oil ship was sunk by another foreign ship near Humen Bridge at the estuary of the Pearl River. The oil ship was seriously damaged and the fuel oil of 230 cubic meters it carried was spilled over to the marine areas of Shiziyang and Lingdingyang located at the estuary of the Yellow River. The area contaminated by the oil spills was about 390 square kilometers.

Implementation of the Law of Marine Environmental Protection From April 1, 2000, the revised Law of Marine Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China was enacted. The governments at various levels of the coastal provinces and municipalities organized large-scale publicity and educational activities, with the aim to strengthen the public awareness to protect the marine environment.

Red Tide

Red tide is a kind of natural ecological phenomena, which have been mentioned in the Bible. Quite amount of red tides are harmless. However, red tides occurred frequently and widely in recent years, which destroyed fishery resources and mariculture, and threatened marine environment and human's health.

Some red tide algae can produce toxins which can be accumulated in shellfish and fish. When people consume them, people will be poisoned or even to death; some red tide microalgae can't threaten human, but can produce toxin to harm marine organisms such as fish; although some other red tide species are not toxic , they may cause marine organism die due to mechanical damage to gills or oxygen depletion.

The main red tide organisms are marine planktonic microalgae. More than 260 species can form red tides among more than 4000 marine planktonic microalgae, and more than 70 species can produce toxin.

Trying to enhance the treatment of industrial, agricultural and domestic sewage, control the self- pollution resulted from bait and excreta in mariculture, mitigate oceanic eutrophication and concern the possible new red tide organisms from ballast water and biological introduction,which can prevent the occurrence of the red tide.

Red tides pappened times in offshore and coastal areas of China

The Characteristics of Ocean Calamity In the Year 2000

There were some characteristics of ocean calamity in this year.

(1). The storm tide calamity in the coast of East China was very serious, while south China is comparative much less than East China. The two heavy storm tides which occurred in East China were caused by typhoon coming toward north along the coast, especially "paibian" wind storm which also influenced Jiangsu , Shanghai and Zhejiang province ,etc. Because both the two storm tides happened in the period of the chronometer spring tide, influenced with spring tide and storm tide, the highest tide levels in the majority tide station coastwise exceeded the native alert water lines, the loss brought on was serious.

(2). Red tide happened frequently, and the loss was heavy. This year, there had happened 28 times red tide incidents, 13 more than that of 1999. The times and area of red tide in East ocean had been remarkably increased, the economic loss was quite large..

(3). Ice condition was serious this year, compared to the year from 1990 to 1999. The ice condition in the sea of Bohai and north of the Yellow Sea was comparatively weak, but in this year it was more serious than the past nine years, at one time, the range of drift ice was so large that it caused a lot of loss.

Oil Spills

Ten incidents of oil spills happened in sea area of China, 5 were comparatively serious, and the economic loss was about 1.1 hundred million yuan.

1. On June 6, cargo "No.1 of MinYou" and "Dongfangyang" based on Hainan province came into collision with each other, tons of crude oil was poured into the sea area, which polluted the sea area of four villages and towns.

2. On October 15, gas pipeline in seabed ruptured at KP2.46 km of landing spot of "Daishan", crude oil of 300 hundred million m3 leaked out.

3. On November 14, oil tanker "Dehang 298" carried 230 m3 crude oil barged against "BOW CECIL" based on Norway, the former sank into the sea. All the oil carried leaked out into the sea area of "Shiziyang" and "Lingdingyang" at the gate of Zhujinag River, about 390 km2 was polluted.

4. On November 15, "No.16 of LeAn" oil tanker that carried 975 ton crude oil collided with southern seawall of Dongying port, a large amount of crude oil spilled, the seawall and beach as well as the sea area around was contaminated.

5. On December 24, oil tanker "No.510 of Wanxinjiaoji" was knocked to sink into the sea near to Lingding Island, all diesel oil loaded was spilled into the sea, sea area of approximately 40 km2 was polluted by crude oil.