In conjunction with the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing, and the Urban-Rural Department of China, The Ministry of Water Resources, and The Ministry of Health, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has issued a plan for the protection of drinking water resource of cities in China.
According to Tao Detian, a spokesperson for MEP, this is the first plan that China has ever made on drinking water resource protection. Tao said that the implementation of the plan will effectively guide the water resource protection and pollution prevention work in the country, further improve the centralized drinking water source quality, and improve the country's water source management and water safety level.
Tao explained that the plan — which was compiled based on an evaluation of the environment management of 4,002 centralized drinking water source sites in 665 cities and counties across China — has offered an analysis to the major problems encountered in protecting China's water sources, and puts forward principles as well as targets for water source safety in 2020. In addition, it has set out eight tasks to solve environmental problems in substandard or highly polluted water source areas. The eight tasks are: separating and preventing environmental problems in first class protection areas; carrying out rectification programs in first class protection areas; carrying out rectification work in second class protection areas; carrying out pollution control in the non-water source areas of the second class protection areas; conducting water source ecology recovery and construction; building up a scientific drinking water source monitoring system to raise the monitoring and emergency handling capability; setting up a national drinking water source management system to raise the management level and ensure drinking water safety; making city water source emergency pre-warning measures; and controlling drilling to prevent drinking water pollution.
It is understood that the total investment involved in the plan will be as much as CNY58 billion.
