China is running a millionaire project to clean heavily contaminated waters of the country

The very serious contamination of China's waters has boosted the start of 8,000 projects to clean this vital liquid. To do them, US $ 100 billion was disbursed during the first half of this year, Reuters reports, citing the country's environment ministry.

According to surveys, 343 zones were identified as highly contaminated, which means that water is unusable because it does not meet the minimum quality standards.

The main cause of this ecological problem is zero regulation, uncontrolled expansion of industries and the uncontrollable use of pesticides and fertilizers, which in turn causes large volumes of water to not be reused.

Few improvements

The ministry also noted that water quality improvements were recorded this month, but in some regions this goal was not met. For this reason, they will remain on the waiting list and will be supported when they achieve their goal of reducing pollution this year.

The latest assessments of water quality in China have not been encouraging: this is at the lowest level, so it is not suitable for industrial use or for irrigation. In fact, the water was qualified as "dark and smelly."

According to the authorities, of the 2,100 places identified as "dark and smelly", 44.1% have already completed treatment projects in the first half of the year, adding that in some provinces, such as Hebei, Shanxi, Liaoning and Anhui, work still Was not performed.

Faced with the urgency of increasing stocks and securing food and energy, Beijing pledged in 2015 to clean up its major waterways and curb the flow of wastewater from highly polluting sectors such as mining, the textile industry, the oil refinery, and others.

Moreover, in order to protect the supply of this vital liquid, the Chinese government decreed the withdrawal of cattle of 636,000 square kilometers, and in the first six months of 2017 closed 213 thousand farms.

Among other measures to counter this problem, China has appointed 200,000 "river chiefs" across the country as part of a new system to force local authorities to be more responsible in improving water quality and to stop its pollution.