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Problems and
Challenges in CHINA
BO-JIE FU
XU-LI A NG ZHUA NG
GUI-BIN JI A NG
JI A N-BO SHI
Y I-HE L
CHINESE ACA DEMY
OF SCIENCES
Ying-ming Li
FIGURE 1
25%
41%
34%
24%
22%
11%
13% Haihe River
Yellow River
76%
24%
30%
Songhua River
Liaohe River
32%
51%
6%
17%
18%
Huaihe River
Yangtze River
76%
Grades IIII
Pearl River
Grades IV, V
Inferior to Grade V
Of the 522 cities monitored in 2005, 11% were considered heavily polluted and only 56% had air quality
that met the State Environmental Protection Administration of China (SEPA) standard (3). The major
air pollutants are particulate matter (PM), SO2, and
nitrogen oxides (NOx). Currently, >40% of Chinas
cities are suffering from high levels of suspended
particles (total concentrations of suspended particles >200 g/m3, or PM10 >100 g/m3) (3, 6).
Ozone has recently aroused much attention because of its harmful impacts on agricultural production and human health. A study in Shanghai
revealed that ozone levels are associated significantly with total and cardiovascular mortality, especially during cold seasons (7). High concentrations
of ozone have caused crop losses in many regions
of China. However, large uncertainty still exists in
how to scale surface ozone distribution and crop
impacts up to the national level, because of highly
inadequate monitoring facilities (8).
The main causes, characteristics, and future
trends of air pollution in China are related to the
energy sector (9, 10) as well as to industrial development, traffic, and urbanization. An estimated 70%
of total smoke (aerosols), 90% of SO2, and 67% of
NOx are released by burning coal (11). Meanwhile,
the number of motor vehicles in China reached 36
million in 2003, compared with 6.2 million in 1990
(9). Thus, the ever-increasing number of vehicles has
become an important contributor to the increasing
air pollution.
The energy infrastructure in China is not expected to change in the near future, and coal will
remain the dominant energy source for at least the
next several years. In addition, vehicle exhaust and
urban activities will increase rapidly in the coming
years. Therefore, the emissions of aerosols, SO2, and
NOx are expected to continue to increase. For that
reason, energy efficiency must be improved, and effective measures are needed to prevent further deterioration of air quality.
and farm produce have been contaminated, especially with residues of organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticides.
Domestic waste increased significantly with urbanization. In 2005, domestic sewage amounted to
28.1 1010 metric tons, a 30% increase since 2000
(3). Because of the lack of proper treatment, the discharge of domestic waste has resulted in serious environmental problems in the air, soil, and water.
Air pollution
Urbanization
Rapid urbanization has taken place in China ever
since the economic development and socioeconomic changes of the 1980s. Approximately 40% of the
population now lives in cities, compared with ~20%
in 1980. The current annual urbanization rate is ~1%,
which means that ~13 million people move into cities every year.
Urbanization has created huge pressures on the
maintenance of agricultural land and production.
In 2005, the net loss of arable land was 361,600 ha
(~0.3% of the total arable land), of which 138,700
ha was used for construction. From 1998 to 2005,
farmland decreased by 7.6 million ha, ~6.2% of the
total arable land (3). The per capita area of cropland in China was only 0.93 ha in 2005, 40% of the
world average (12). To achieve a higher production
rate from the remaining, smaller area of cultivatable
land, China has become the worlds largest consumer of fertilizers and the second largest of pesticides
(13). Consequently, large amounts of cultivated land
YA-WEI WANG
The Chinese government has initiated many efforts to control the ever-worsening environmental
problems. Since the early 1980s, a series of national plans, policies, and laws have been enacted. In
1983, China made environmental protection one of
its basic national policies. In 1994, a broad strategy
was laid out to achieve sustainable development.
Two years later, the first 5-year plan on environmental protection was developed. Recently, a new
scientific development concept was proposed to
achieve a harmonious society and a balanced relationship between humans and nature (11). Establishing the complete set of laws, regulations, and
management systems for environmental protection
and strengthening Chinas protection of ecology and
environment have been considered important for
further development. By the end of 2006, >200 environmental policies, laws, and regulations had been
proposed and enacted, including 58 environmental
laws, 9 regulations on water pollution, and 8 regulations on air pollution (25).
At the same time, great efforts have also been
made in ecological restoration. The Natural Forest Conservation Program (NFCP) and the Sloping
Land Conversion Program (SLCP) are two examples.
Their objectives are soil and water conservation, desertification control, flood control, climate-change
mitigation, and biodiversity conservation (26). The
NFCP was applied in 18 provinces that contain the
upstream regions of major river systems, including the Yellow and Yangtze rivers (27). The SLCP
was planned to cover 22 provinces (most in western
China) for the revegetation of marginal cropland at
slopes >25 (28). Furthermore, ecological agriculture
has been widely advocated to improve agro-resource
use efficiency and productivity and to alleviate agricultural pollution (29, 30).
Fast-growing industry is to a high degree responsible for the environmental degradation in China.
Greening the production cycles has therefore been
a top priority. Generally, corporate image ranks very
high in management concerns (31). Therefore, environmental performance ratings and public disclosure have proven effective in getting Chinese
firms to improve their environmental compliance
(32). Practically, green production processes are vital; they are effective at improving the efficiency of
resource use, the product quality, and the environmental performance of Chinese factories (33).
conservation (35, 36); the improvement of environmental policy, law, and funding mechanisms (37,
38); and the implementation of international environmental treaties (39). However, inadequacies still
exist in control of environmental degradation and
in sustainable environmental management. As SEPA
concluded, The essence of environmental degradation remained unchanged, and environmental
problems tend to be more complicated at the national scale, in spite of many successful local-scale
environmental rehabilitation cases (40). China is
still facing huge challenges in resolving its environmental problems.
The challenges include the limited reserve of
natural resources; the already tense humannature
relationship; the strong momentum for economic
development and urbanization (41); and the insufficiency of institutions, legislation, enforcement, and
so on. The most difficult challenge, however, may
be to find effective approaches in regulating the behaviors and relationships of the various stakeholders
(e.g., different levels of government, the industrial
sector, and the public), who often have different,
sometimes conflicting, objectives and expectations.
Capacity building therefore should be enhanced in
fields such as basic scientific research, technological innovation, policy and institutional design, environmental legislation, and enforcement (12, 23,
26, 42, 43).
China is already making progress in capacity
building. Strategically, China is trying to establish
an integrative decision-making mechanism for harmonizing the environment and economic development. The country is changing its mode of economic
development and promoting a sustainable economy that includes resource recycling. This provides
a favorable sociopolitical environment for making
policies and laws that are oriented toward sustainable development. Financially, more investment will
be allocated to the ecological and environmental
sectors for persistent growth of national economic
strength and for better protection and rehabilitation
of the environment.
Environmental protection and ecological rehabilitation depend largely on the development of
science and technology. In the National MidLongTerm Plan on Science and Technology Development
(20062020), key environmental research fields and
priorities have been determined. These include efficient production, use, and conservation of natural
resources; environmental monitoring, rehabilitation, and pollution control; and green production
in the industrial sector.
Bo-jie Fu is a professor at the State Key Laboratory of
Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for EcoEnvironmental Sciences (RCEES), and Bureau of Science
and Technology for Resource and Environment, Chinese
Academy of Sciences (CAS). Xu-liang Zhuang is an associate professor at the Bureau of Science and Technology
for Resource and Environment, CAS. Gui-bin Jiang is a
professor at and the director of the State Key Laboratory
of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, RCEES,
CAS. Jian-bo Shi is an assistant professor at the State
Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, RCEES, CAS. Yi-he L is an associate professor at the State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional
Ecology, RCEES, CAS. Address correspondence to Fu at
bfu@rcees.ac.cn.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (40621061 and 20621703).
Disclaimer
Opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the position of the government of China
or of any other organization.
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