“Observation and Reflection” „ÄäËßÇÂØü‰∏éÊÄùËÄÉ„Äãis a biweekly news magazine published by the Academy of Social Sciences of Zhejiang province. The following excerpts, translated by CDT, are from an article in the latest issue, via sina.com:
China is a country in which water resources are extremely scarce. The total non-salt water amount is 2, 800, 000,000,000 cubic meters, about only 2300 cubic meters per person. This is only a quarter of the average world level, and ranks 110 of all countries. China is one of the poorest countries in terms of water resources per person.
¬†¬†¬†¬†„ÄÄ„ÄÄ…. Currently, more than half of all cities nationwide are short of water, and water pollution has exacerbated this problem. In late May this year, six teams from the State Environmental Protection Bureau went to the Yellow River, Yangtze River, Huai River and Hai River respectively to investigate the water pollution situation. The conclusion of these investigations is shocking: in these four major river areas, overall pollution is the regular status. In seven main water systems, the quality of 26% of the water is class five or class five minus; water quality of seven out of nine main lakes are class five or class five minus. Both class five and class five minus quality water are classified as “wasted water”, which should not even be used to water farmland, much less for drinking and touching the human body! We cannot help but ask, where are clean waters in the vast land of our motherland? What can we drink after all?
…… Water pollution is beyond an environmental problem. Water pollution incidents seriously affect the stability and harmony of our society. Mr. Zhou Shengxian, the director of State Environmental Protection Bureau pointed out: “in recent years, the number of mass incidents caused by environmental problems have been increasing at a rate of 29% each year. ” In year 2005, there were 51,000 environmental conflicts nationwide. Since the Songhua River pollution incident, on average there have been environmental incidents every other day in China.„ÄÇ[Full Text in Chinese]
