There are some 9,600 land-based sources of pollution along China’s coastline - one source for every two kilometers of coast, according to inspection results for 2017 released by China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) on January 17. This is the first time China has pinpointed land-based pollution sources in the country, reported
xinhuanet, the online arm of the official
Xinhua News Agency.
For a long time, China didn’t know how many land-based sources of pollution there were, but the SOA report means China will be able to better regulate and supervise polluters, which has posed a major challenge in the past.
In the future, the SOA will make efforts to regulate land-based pollution sources. Ecological safety will be the top requirement for any pollutants discharged into the marine environment. Sites where discharges are permitted will be carefully chosen, and there will be guidelines and technical regulations regarding the discharge of oceanic pollutants. The SOA will evaluate and propose a list of land-based pollution sources that are illegal or unreasonably set up, and formulate rectification plans and address such outlets in accordance with the law.
As well as strengthening regulation of land-based pollution sources, there will be a raft of new measures to tackle polluters, including requirements for polluters to set up information-sharing systems and accelerate the building of a real-time online monitoring system for the marine environment. More importantly, an evaluation and accountability mechanism for sea-bound pollution discharges will be established, which will be integrated into the performance evaluation system of Party committees and governments at all levels.
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