Yangtze’s Decline Highlights China’s Growing Water Problems

China Watch Home About China Watch

China is home to three of the top ten “rivers at risk” worldwide, according to a report released in March by the conservation group WWF. The Yangtze in the south is plagued by rising pollution, the Mekong-Lancang in the west by overfishing, and the Salween-Nu, also in the west, by infrastructure and dams, the report notes. The Yellow River, another “mother river” for the Chinese people, is also on the verge of death, suffering from severe pollution and water shortages.

This news would not surprise the Yangtze, the longest river in one of the world’s most polluted countries. Each year, nearly 60 percent of China’s pollution is generated in the river’s basin, and some 42 percent of the nation’s discharged wastewater ends up in the Yangtze. Pollution and human activities have greatly affected the river’s biodiversity. The baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin, a rare species that has lived in the river for more than 20 million years, was declared effectively extinct by an international expedition last year.

Leading factors behind the Yangtze’s decline include weak pollution controls and the administration isolation of riverside cities. Six of the 21 large cities that lie along the river—Chongqing, Nanjing , Shanghai, Wuhan, Yueyang, and Zhengjiang—together create a 600-kilometer-long pollution zone, yet they do not frequently work together to address shared river concerns.

Five large steel plants, seven oil refineries, and several petrochemical bases are currently located in the Yangtze basin, and some 10,000 petroleum factories—nearly half of China’s total—are built right on the river. Eight provinces and cities in the basin’s middle and lower reaches have given priority in their 11th five-year plans (2006–10) to developing heavy chemical industries along the river as a major model of economic growth, not just for the convenience of transportation, but also as a shortcut for discharging wastewater.

Last month, a research group on Yangtze River Basin Water Safety and Security submitted an investigative report to the National People’s Congress calling for the relocation of heavy chemical industries to protect the basin’s environment, according to The Economic Observer. Zhenlou Chen, the head of the research group, expressed his deep concern over the worsening pollution, noting that, “the waters of spring have almost become poisonous.”

Nearly 90 percent of the rivers running through China’s cities are seriously polluted, while in most lakes, nitrogen and phosphorous levels measure above the national surface water standard. Of some 200 lakes under investigation in eastern and southwestern China, nearly 80 percent face eutrophication and ecological degradation.

China’s groundwater has suffered as well. “Nearly 90 percent of the underground water in China is contaminated with organic and inorganic pollutants, and pollution appears to be expanding,” said Lijun Zhang, vice president of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).

With a growing number of serious pollution accidents along the Yangtze and other rivers in recent years, it is now nearly impossible to find safe drinking water sources in China, according to Changming Liu, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Science and dean of the school of aquatic science at Beijing Normal University.

Jianqiang Liu is a senior investigative journalist with China Southern Weekend and a visiting scholar at Peking University.