Inner Mongolia takes various measures to make Wuliangsu Lake clear again
In recent years, Bayannur City in north China's Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region has spared no effort to explore new ways of environmental governance, and implemented comprehensive treatment of mountains, water, forests, fields, lakes, grasses, and sands in the Wuliangsu Lake.
The Wuliangsu Lake, known as "A Pearl Beyond the Great Wall", is the largest fresh water lake in the drainage basin of the Yellow River.
Since 1980s, with the continuous discharge of industrial wastewater, domestic sewage, and farmland backwater, the quality of the lake water deteriorated sharply around 2008. Faced with problems such as eutrophication, degradation of ecological functions, and shrinkage of lake area, Bayannur City has taken various measures to improve its environment.
In recent years, the Bayannur Municipal Party Committee has continued to promote the integrated protection and restoration of mountains, waters, forests, fields, lakes, and sands in the Wuliangsu Lake Basin, and implemented a systematic treatment of 16,300 square kilometers in the basin.
By the end of 2020, the Wuliangsu Lake Basin administration had completed the comprehensive treatment of about 26,667 hectares of Ulan Buh desert, which effectively curbed the desert's eastward invasion, blocked the flow of mud and sand into the Yellow River, and prevented the river from eroding the plains in Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
Now the damaged mountains have been repaired, and more than 60 percent of the sites of mines have been restored. The "Four control actions" of water, fertilizers, pesticides and membranes have worked to reduce the use of 26,000 tons of fertilizers and 300 tons of pesticides.
Eleven sewage treatment plants in the basin area have now been upgraded and all of them have achieved the discharge standard. Multiple waterways have been excavated in the lake area and the hydrodynamics and water circulation of the river are improved continuously. The systematic treatment has improved the quality of ecological environment in Wuliangsu Basin, effectively improving the region's biodiversity.
At present, there are more than 260 species of birds migrating through and breeding in the Wuliangsu Lake area and the total number has exceeded six million.
"In the next step, in accordance with the requirements of the General Secretary, we will continue to promote the ecological management of the Wuliangsu Basin, and take comprehensive measures to protect the mountains, waters, forests, fields, lakes, grasses and sands, so as to make the Wuliangsu Lake an even more brilliant pearl on the northern borders of our motherland, "said Liu Zhiyong, deputy major of Bayannur City.