Ladies and gentlemen and dear friends from the press,

Good morning!

The first national census on pollution sources is an important move to collect information on national conditions. Over the past two years, local governments and departments concerned have focused on policy implementation with close cooperation under the unified leadership and arrangement of the State Council. The work has progressed smoothly and primary tasks have basically been completed.

The Report of the First National Census on Pollution Sources and related documents have been circulated at the press conference. So I will not repeat in detail. Now I would like to brief you on the general situation of the census.

The census started on December 31, 2007 and examined data for the year 2007. The two-year-plus program involved 570,000 people nationwide who spent laborious hours on it in spite of the difficulties posed by tight schedule, demanding tasks and heavy workload. They have undertaken a range of work including pre-census preparation, pilot census, monitoring, publicity and training on census, baseline investigation, door-to-door submission, data input, quality control, data assessment, collection and analysis and result notification. The staff went through 5,925,600 facilities under the four census categories, namely industrial sources, agricultural sources, domestic pollution sources and concentrated pollution control facilities and obtained 1.1 billion pieces of data.

The results of the census are summed up in the following four aspects:

First, the total discharge of major pollutants across the country has been identified. The census, for the first time in China, incorporated agricultural sources and all domestic sources beyond county government jurisdiction as well as leachate from refuse disposal facilities. With science-based calculation of pollution generation and discharge, the census has produced a more objective and true picture on discharges of various pollutants. As it showed that in 2007 total discharge of COD in wastewater was 30.2896 million tons (including 13.2409 million tons from agricultural sources), NH3-N 1.7291 million tons, heavy metal (cadmium, chromium, arsenic, mercury and lead) 900 tons, and total nitrogen and total phosphorus were 4.7289 million tons and 423,200 tons respectively. In waste air there were 23.2 million tons of SO2 emissions, 17.977 million tons of NOx, 11.6664 million tons of soot and 7.6468 million tons of industrial dust. Industrial solid waste and hazardous waste stood at 49.1487 million tons and 39,400 tons respectively.

Second, features of pollution sources in river basins, regions and industries and their control effort were further understood. The key river basins for water pollution control such as the Huaihe River, Haihe River, Liaohe River, Taihu Lake, Dianchi Lake and Chaohu Lake received enormous amount of water pollutants. Industrial polluters mainly concentrated on a few industries and areas, causing serious environmental problems due to industrial structure. The discharges of four major pollutants, i.e. COD, NH3-N, SO2 and NOx in well-developed and densely-populated regions ranked among the top nationwide, of which the discharges of COD and NH3-N from papermaking, textile and six other industries accounted for 83% and 73% of the total industrial pollution respectively. Six sectors including thermal power and non-metal minerals took up 89% of SO2 and 93% of NOx total emissions. Vehicle emission contributed a large share to urban air pollution, accounting for 30% of the total NOx emissions. The current national census for the first time included the information about major polluting sectors, pollution sources and discharges from the tertiary industry.

Third, the pollution discharge from agricultural sources has been understood. Pollution from agriculture sources imposed big impact on water environment. COD discharge from agriculture sources totaled 13.2409 million tons, accounting for 43.7% of the total. Agriculture was also the main source of TN and TP, which were measured 2.7046 million tons and 284,700 tons respectively, or 57.2% and 67.4% of the total. To address water pollution in China at the root, we must take prevention and control of pollution from agricultural sources as our top priority.

Fourth, the national census helped to strengthen basic work of environmental protection. We have established a database for pollution sources with environment-related data of 5.9256 million census targets. With unified code system for the data, group search was available by such categories as industry, region or environmental indicators as required. The data bank has served as an important base for management and decision-making and laid groundwork for reforming current environmental statistic and investigation system and improving indicators, monitoring and assessment systems for the reduction of total pollution. At the same time, the census has identified a systematic method for determining the generation and discharge of major pollutants and built up our environmental forces.

That's all about the national census. Thank you!

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