Govt probe into sewage outlets to improve Yangtze River ecology

A large-scale investigation into sewage discharge outlets in the Yangtze River has been launched, according to China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

An official from the ministry said on Monday that in the first half of 2019, technologies including satellite remote sensing, drone aerial photography, unmanned ships and robots will be used to get a clear picture of the outlets that are discharging sewage into the mother river, which passes through 11 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

The Yangtze River Economic Zone produces more than 40 percent of China’s GDP and discharges more than 40 percent of the country’s waste water.

The investigation into outlets discharging sewage into the river is a fundamental task that will radically improve the ecology and environment of the 6,300-kilometer-long Yangtze River.

The two-year investigation aims to find all sewage outlets, monitor them while screening the polluting ones, and learn more about the contaminants in the water.

The investigation will also track the source of the severely polluting outlets, and then regulate or remove them.

Yubei district of Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality and Taizhou of East China’s Jiangsu Province will find and monitor the outlets in the first half of 2019, then track and regulate them in the second half.

Other cities along the river will learn from the experience of the two regions in the first half of 2019 in preparation for working plans to find and monitor the outlets.

The scope of the investigation is focused 63 cities along the stem stream of the Yangtze River, which stretches from Yibin in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province to the East China Sea, as well as its major tributaries.