CHONGQING, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) — Wearing white coats and handling testing instruments, Wei Wei and his colleagues are called \”doctors\” by many, yet what they diagnose are not human ailments but water health problems in the Yangtze River, China\’s longest waterway.
Wushan County in southwest China\’s Chongqing Municipality is the last stop before the Yangtze flows into Hubei Province. Wei and other \”water doctors\” are tasked with closely monitoring the water quality in Wushan to ensure that the vast lower reaches of this river will not be polluted.
As the deputy head of Wushan County\’s ecology and environment monitoring station, Wei\’s work involves collecting water samples with flasks from the Yangtze and testing them for 24 indexes, primarily total phosphorus, in the lab.
\”Total phosphorus, a major indicator of water quality, declined from 0.103 milligrams per liter in 2016 to 0.043 milligrams per liter in 2022. In the first nine months of this year, the level was even slightly lower,\” he said.
Wei and his colleagues are not alone on the water. Boats collecting garbage and other floating waste are their companions.
A total of 30 such boats are deployed on the Wushan section of the Yangtze and they retrieved more than 27,000 tonnes of floating waste from January to September this year, a larger-than-usual amount due to heavier rainfall in 2023. Over the past few years, more than 132,000 tonnes of waste have been removed from river water.
\”We strive to block every piece of garbage from entering the lower reaches of the river,\” said Yu Zhihua, a Wushan official in charge of this clearance work.
Wushan, situated in the heart of the Three Gorges Reservoir region and home to the world\’s largest hydropower project, has spent 400 million yuan (55.7 million U.S. dollars) on building 30 sewage processing facilities in its bid to curb water pollution.
Wushan\’s efforts are part of Chongqing\’s endeavor to conserve ecology and pursue green development in a comprehensive manner.
A 10-year fishing ban came into effect in the mega city at the beginning of 2021, in line with a river-wide policy to help the significant waterway recover from a period of dwindling aquatic resources and degrading biodiversity. Monitoring data shows that rare fish species are bouncing back with their populations growing following the implementation of the fishing ban.
Chongqing has also completed the restoration of exhausted open-pit mines located within 10 km of the Yangtze and its main tributaries, while about a quarter of the city\’s total area has been designated as ecological conservation zones. The forest coverage rate has reached 55 percent, up from 46.3 percent in 2017.
Improving ecology and a growing animal population are benefits of these efforts, and Wei has expressed delight at frequently seeing wild boars and their cubs crossing the Yangtze. \”My wish is that the Yangtze River turns even cleaner and we are making efforts toward it,\” he said.