CHINA: snapshot of environmental devastation

Eva Cheng

A 2001 World Bank report, China: Air, Land and Water, provides a telling snapshot of the destruction of China's environment.

Air

• In 1999, only one-third of the 338 monitored cities met the nation's air quality standard (with a similar picture in 2004, according to Chinese official figures);

• 80% of China's population still use solid fuels such as coal, firewood and crop stalks, contributing significantly to the estimated 700,000 premature deaths a year in China;

• Total suspended particulates, coming mainly from soot (from domestic and industrial sources), fly ash and fugitive dust (often from industry), are the nation's number one air pollutant. Sulfur dioxide is number two;

• China's global share of carbon dioxide emissions, a key greenhouse gas, rose during the 1990s from 10% to 12%.

Land

• In the early 1990s, 375 million hectares of land — 40% of China — suffered from moderate to severe erosion, with water and wind erosion being the main causes, followed by salinisation;

• A third of China, roughly 331 million hectares, is prone to desertification (262 million hectares is already devastated), with the main causes being excessive land reclamation and excessive build-up of livestock numbers during the 1960s and '70s when China tried to achieve food self-sufficiency;

• Salinisation, partly due to poor irrigation systems, affects 82-100 million hectares, including about 8 million hectares of cultivated land;

• 4.8 million hectares of mostly high quality cultivated land were lost during 1987-95, replaced only in part by mostly inappropriate arid and semi-arid land, at considerable environmental cost, including the loss of good-quality grasslands and important wetlands;

• 90% of grassland was degraded, including 34% moderately or severely, undermining biodiversity, watershed protection and air quality. A main cause is inappropriate conversion to crop land;

• Deforestation contributed partly to devastating floods. Reforestation efforts were significant but biodiversity and maturity of the stocks declined, resulting in many species being seriously threatened.

Water

• Linked to surging demand, water shortages and pollution rose, groundwater tables fell, and floods and droughts were frequent, "rapidly approaching crisis proportions" in at least some areas;

• The problem is particularly acute north of the Yangtze River, even more so in the catchments of Huai, Hai and Huang rivers, which produces 35% of China's GDP and the economically and politically important Beijing-Tianjin stretch;

• The main river pollutants are organic materials from domestic and industrial sources, plus industrial hydrocarbons, plant nutrients, light lubricating oil and heavy metals;

• Virtually all coastal seas are moderately to highly polluted, with inorganic nitrogen being the top pollutant, followed by phosphate and oil;

• A 1994 assessment of 69 cities and the Hai River basin shows poor groundwater quality in a majority of areas, with the most common pollutants coming from leaking sewers and overflowing septic tanks;

• Between 1980-98, fertiliser consumption in China surged more than 500% to 41 million metric tonnes a year. Reflecting a general pattern, 70% of nutrient flows into Dianchi Lake in Yunnan Province came from agricultural run-off.

  From Green Left Weekly, August 17, 2005.
  
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From GLW issue 638