Since the State Council issued and implemented the “Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention” (hereinafter referred to as the “Water Ten Measures”) in April 2015, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with various regions and departments, has taken improving water quality as the core focus, introduced supporting policies and measures, accelerated the pace of water pollution control, and earnestly fulfilled all target tasks. As a result, a number of water pollution issues that have been of great concern to the public have been effectively addressed, and the overall quality of China’s water environment has maintained a sustained trend of improvement.

First, we have achieved comprehensive control over the discharge of water pollutants. By the end of 2019, 97.8% of industrial clusters at or above the provincial level nationwide had built centralized wastewater treatment facilities and installed automatic online monitoring systems. The retrofitting of underground oil tanks at gas stations to prevent leakage has been completed for 95.6%. Cities at or above the prefectural level have surveyed 69,000 kilometers of sewage pipelines and eliminated more than 1,000 square kilometers of previously unaccounted-for sewage pipeline coverage areas. In total, over 263,000 livestock and poultry farms (or farm communities) located within prohibited breeding zones have been legally shut down or relocated, and comprehensive environmental improvements have been carried out in 188,000 villages.

Second, we are making every effort to ensure the safety of the aquatic ecological environment. We continue to push forward with the nationwide environmental remediation of centralized drinking water sources. In 2019, among the 3,626 issues identified at 899 county-level water sources, 3,624 were successfully addressed. To date, a total of 10,363 issues across 2,804 water sources have been rectified, significantly enhancing and consolidating the safety of drinking water for 770 million residents. Of the 2,899 black-and-odor water bodies in 295 prefecture-level and above cities nationwide, 2,513 have now been remediated, achieving an elimination rate of 86.7%. Among these, the 36 key cities (including municipalities directly under the central government, provincial capitals, and cities under separate planning) have reached an elimination rate of 96.2%, while other cities have achieved an elimination rate of 81.2%. What were once “stinky ditches” have now become “beautiful gardens,” greatly boosting the sense of gain among local residents. We have also completed a comprehensive survey of river and sea discharge outlets along the 24,000-kilometer shoreline of the Yangtze River basin, the 3,600-kilometer shoreline around the Bohai Sea, and the 2-kilometer coastal zones adjacent to these shorelines.

Third, we will strengthen watershed water environment management. We will establish and improve a comprehensive supervision mechanism for watershed environmental management that integrates analytical early warning, dispatch reporting, and supervisory inspection. In accordance with the "Plan for Deepening Reform of Party and State Institutions," we have set up seven ecological and environmental supervision administrations for river basins (and marine areas), along with their corresponding monitoring and research centers. The handover of responsibilities among water functional zones has proceeded smoothly, and the optimization and integration of monitoring sections for water functional zones and those for surface water quality monitoring have been largely completed, significantly enhancing the efficiency of water environment regulation.

　　Monitoring data show that in 2019, among the nationally monitored surface water sections across the country, the proportions of water quality rated as excellent (Classes I–III) and having lost their intended use (inferior to Class V) were 74.9% and 3.4%, respectively—up by 8.9 percentage points and down by 6.3 percentage points compared to 2015. Water quality in the main streams of major rivers has been steadily improving. However, the situation regarding water pollution control remains severe, and imbalances and lack of coordination in aquatic ecological protection remain prominent. Damage to aquatic ecosystems and the phenomenon of rivers and lakes drying up or running dry are still relatively widespread. There are still some shortcomings in the construction of environmental infrastructure in both urban and rural areas. Addressing non-point source pollution in urban and rural areas is a long-term task; in particular, around certain key lakes and reservoirs, aquaculture and agricultural non-point source pollution remain serious issues that require accelerated efforts to resolve.

In 2019, 22 provinces—including Chongqing, Guizhou, Hainan, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Qinghai, Shanghai, Gansu, Tibet, Fujian, Hebei, Guangxi, Beijing, Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Shaanxi, and Anhui—achieved good results in implementing the Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention. Four provinces—Shandong, Liaoning, Henan, and Guangdong—performed relatively well. Meanwhile, five provinces—Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Heilongjiang, and Shanxi—still need to accelerate the pace of implementation.

2020 marked the concluding year of the tough battle against water pollution. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with relevant departments, will, in accordance with the overarching requirements of maintaining the same direction and unwavering intensity, adhere to a problem-oriented, goal-oriented, and results-oriented approach. We will emphasize precise, scientific, and law-based pollution control, continue to strengthen coordination and supervision, and ensure that all tasks and targets set forth in the “Ten Measures for Water” are successfully achieved.