Despite improvements in controlling emissions from burning coal, the “overall environmental situation in China is still grave,” states the Chinese State Environmental Protection Administration’s (SEPA) annual national environment report for 2001.

The report states that water pollution in the country’s seven major river systems worsened since 2000. Problems were most severe in the Yellow, Liao, and Huai River basins, all of which run through the northern part of the country, where the country’s worst drought in more than a decade resulted in water volume drops that associated with exacerbated pollution. The quality of 46% of the country’s offshore waters was rated as poor or worse, with the most problems in the East China and Bohai Seas.

Urban air quality changed very little with air failing to meet the national standard in 67% of 341 monitored cities. However, total suspended particulate (TSP) pollution became more widespread.

The relatively stable air quality numbers posted for 2001 are notable because China posted “fairly impressive declines” in sulfur dioxide and particulate emissions, at least in major cities, during the previous four to five years, notes a Beijing-based Western diplomat. The latest report “may indicate that further improvements are getting harder to come by, or that polluters have relaxed a bit following the high-profile campaign at the end of 2000 to meet the environmental targets of the Ninth Five-Year Plan,” he explains. It also hints that there was “backsliding” in some areas, he adds.

It’s hard to pinpoint the source of these negative trends, says the diplomat, explaining that the weather may be partially responsible, notably a sharp increase in dust storms hitting cities in North China in 2000. Poor land management practices may have exacerbated the dust problem, according to WorldWatch, an environmental group.

China has managed to bring some sources of pollution, particularly coal smoke from power plants and industrial boilers, fairly well under control in areas such as Beijing and Shanghai, the diplomat adds. Because motor vehicle use is rising rapidly, however, new forms of pollution are taking their place, he adds. Although the Chinese government has not acknowledged the link between continued urban pollution and automobiles, Beijing’s City Environmental Protection Bureau announced in June that the city is planning to combat pollution by implementing tighter automobile standards in January 2003, a year ahead of the national schedule. Beijing will host the Olympic Games in 2008.

The diplomat stressed that China does not yet regularly monitor and report some important classes of pollutants, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and air toxics.

When the report was issued, Zhu Jianqiu, a SEPA vice-minister, called attention to the country’s increasing desertification problem. Zhu said that China’s deserts and desertified areas cover 2.42 million square kilometers (km2), with an annual expansion of more than 3000 km2. More than 90% of usable natural grasslands in China, a total area of 135 million hectares, suffered varying degrees of degradation last year, he explained. A report by the Inner Mongolia Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB), an area hard hit by desertification, says that overgrazing and unsustainable cultivation are partly to blame.

Details about the report are available at SEPA’s Web site: www.zhb.gov.cn/english.