In spite of persistent severe pollution in China's coastal waters, the country's marine environment reported a turn for the better last year, the State Oceanographic Administration (SOA) announced on Friday.
The country's "heavily polluted" sea area decreased by 7,000 square km in the previous year, the SOA 2002 Bulletin on China's Marine Environment reported.
The pollution of sea water is traditionally categorized into four categories: "Normal," which is suitable for marine life; "lightly polluted," can still meet the requirements of marine aquaculture; "moderately polluted," can only be used as ports and lastly, "heavily polluted," which means it is neither good for marine life or human activity.
But what is particularly significant is the improvement in the country's 18 key aquatic breeding areas, 12 major seaside resorts and offshore oil extraction regions, which have now met the standard of "satisfactory," revealed SOA spokesman, Wang Fei.
He warned that despite those improvements, China's major coastal cities needed to do more to address the problem of deteriorating offshore sea waters, and urged them to maintain clean-up operations.
"Without local government efforts in sewage treatment and aquatic cultivation supervision, the sea water pollution might never abate in certain areas," said Wang, adding: "There is still much to do."
The heaviest levels of pollution remain in the offshore waters of densely populated cities and advanced industrial centers, such as north China's Tianjin and east China's Shanghai. And to date there is no sign of this dire situation abating.
The marine ecological systems of those areas have come dangerously close to collapse, Li Xiaoming, director of the SOA Marine Environment Protection Department warned.
Citing the results of the country's first special investigation into the marine ecological environment, which was completed at the end of last year. Li said something had to be done quickly, before "it was too late."
Li confirmed that the SOA is pushing for an ambitious ecological restoration project at the mouth of the country's mighty Yangtze River in answer to a call by local oceanographic experts there. The area is thought to be losing its indigenous marine ecological systems because of excessive pollution.
Although the country's total sea area classified as "polluted" rose by 1,000 square km over the year 2001 to 174,000 square km last year, it was still 32,000 square km less than that of 2000.
"The trend of improvement continues," said Wang.
(China Daily January 11, 2003)
