Six more automatic water quality monitoring stations will be installed on the Yellow River by 2010, China's second longest waterway, to assist control worsening pollution, according to a water resources official.

 

The stations will be located at border areas of provinces or regions the river runs through -- Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong, said Zhang Qing, deputy director of the Yellow River Basin Water Resources Protection Bureau.  

 

The new facilities will automatically monitor a range of information including the water temperature, turbidity, ammonia and nitrogen content and other pollution indices to help control and treat water pollution, explained Zhang.

 

The monitoring would assist guarantee the quality of water diverted from the Yellow River to north China's thirsty Tianjin City, Zhang said, and the plan for the stations had been submitted to the National Development and Reform Commission for approval.

 

The Ministry of Water Resources will set aside 12 million yuan (US$1.5 million) for construction of the facilities when approval is granted.  

 

Currently the Yellow River has two such stations at Tongguan, Shaanxi Province and Huayuankou, Henan Province. They were built in 2002.

 

Originating in country’s northwest Qinghai Province the 5,464-km Yellow River runs through nine provinces and autonomous regions before entering the Bohai Sea in north China. It forms a valley of 752,000 sq km, supplies water to 12 percent of China's population of 1.3 billion and irrigates 15 percent of the nation's farmland.

 

However, the river is suffering badly from pollution, silting and a dramatic fall in the water flow. This is mainly due to agricultural and industrial activities. And almost four-fifths of the river is polluted, according to the Yellow River Conservancy Committee.

 

In the 1980s approximately 60 percent of the Yellow River could boast water quality of category 3 or better – which is good for drinking, aquatic breeding, fisheries and swimming. But the figure dropped to an alarming 40 percent in the late 1990s.

 

In recent years both central and local governments have taken measures to curb the pollution including significant investments in waste treatment plants and the closure of heavily polluting factories along the river.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2006)