China Environ Prot (EP) Industry, Technology, Solid Waste Mgt, Liquid Treat: News & Discussions

[JSCh]

Backup power services give way to rare birds
Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-28 16:25:57|Editor: Mengjie


SHIJIAZHUANG, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Residents in Tangshan, north China's Hebei Province, may face power outages as State Grid has decided to give way to intruders in the high-voltage facilities -- rare birds.

Some 30 oriental white storks have nested on power towers between two 35-kv transformer substations that are used as backup power for over 5,000 households in Fengnan District.

Nine pairs are hatching eggs in the nests, said Wang Xiaoli, manager of the Fengnan District branch of State Grid Corporation of China.

The oriental white stork is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The wild population is estimated at less than 5,000.

The large birds flapping their wings near power facilities may lead to a short circuit, and also put themselves in danger, Wang said.

Wang said workers will increase maintenance on the major power supply to avoid having to launch the backup power to help protect the species.

"We will find them a new home after the young chicks grow old enough to fly away," he said.

 

[TaiShang]

Xi: Make homeland green
China Daily, April 3, 2018

Both quantity and quality should be ensured as China unfolds its effort to make the homeland greener, President Xi Jinping said on Monday as he took part in a voluntary tree planting event in Beijing.

President Xi Jinping pitches in at a tree planting activity in Beijing's Tongzhou district on Monday. He said such efforts will greatly benefit future generations. [Photo/Xinhua]

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has called on top officials at different levels to lead public efforts in planting trees voluntarily and cherishing the natural environment as much as their lives.

China has set the goal of increasing areas covered by forest to average world levels around the middle of this century.

The homeland greening effort also aims to increase its percentage of forest cover to about 23 percent in 2020 and 26 percent in 2035.

As he shoveled soil alongside residents of Beijing's Tongzhou district, Xi said planting trees is one of the nation's great traditions.

The event on Monday helps fulfill a duty and is also a tangible move that helps shape a beautiful China, boosts ecological civilization and improves public well-being, Xi said.

The country's homeland greening effort should be based on a scientific approach and led by organized plantings and should be in accord with local conditions, Xi said.

He has called on lasting efforts to make sure the planned missions are completed, and to improve the quality and stability of the country's ecological system.

Effort should be made to beautify the environment and ensure the public's comfort with the environment, Xi added.

The greening project should be implemented on a solid basis, and the forms of voluntary plantings should be further diversified, Xi said, adding that the efforts made by this generation will benefit generations to come.

 

[JSCh]

China to offer technological support for Africa's anti-desertification project
Source: Xinhua| 2018-04-10 19:41:03|Editor: pengying


BEIJING, April 10 (Xinhua) -- China has approved a project to offer technological support for the construction of Africa's Great Green Wall, the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said on Tuesday.

Proposed by the African Union in 2007, Africa's Great Green Wall initiative aims to reverse desertification spreading drought, famine, and poverty through the Sahel region.

According to Lei Jiaqiang, director of the XIEG, China will cooperate with Mauritania, Nigeria and Ethiopia, amongst other African countries, to systematically diagnose desertification and the technical needs in the region.

The project will bring China's desertification prevention and control technologies, materials, and products to Africa, and conduct environmental adaptability assessments.

It will also include personnel training and capacity building on anti-desertification measures in African countries. Some Chinese enterprises dealing with prevention and control of desertification will also participate in the project.

"We hope to bring China's wisdom in anti-desertification to Africa and help enhance the capability of desertification prevention in African countries along the Great Green Wall," Lei said.

 

[JSCh]

China builds ‘world’s biggest air purifier’ (and it seems to be working)
A 100-metre high air purification tower in Xian in Shaanxi province has helped reduce smog levels in the city, preliminary results suggest

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 16 January, 2018, 6:45am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 16 January, 2018, 10:26am
Comments: 23

Stephen Chen

An experimental tower over 100 metres (328 feet) high in northern China – dubbed the world’s biggest air purifier by its operators – has brought a noticeable improvement in air quality, according to the scientist leading the project, as authorities seek ways to tackle the nation’s chronic smog problem.

The tower has been built in Xian in Shaanxi province and is undergoing testing by researchers at the Institute of Earth Environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The head of the research, Cao Junji, said improvements in air quality had been observed over an area of 10 square kilometres (3.86 square miles) in the city over the past few months and the tower has managed to produce more than 10 million cubic metres (353 million cubic feet) of clean air a day since its launch. Cao added that on severely polluted days the tower was able to reduce smog close to moderate levels.

The system works through greenhouses covering about half the size of a soccer field around the base of the tower.

Polluted air is sucked into the glasshouses and heated up by solar energy. The hot air then rises through the tower and passes through multiple layers of cleaning filters.

“The tower has no peer in terms of size … the results are quite encouraging,” said Cao.

​

Xian can experience heavy pollution in winter, with much of the city’s heating relying on coal.

The tower’s operators say, however, that the system still works in the cold months as coatings on the greenhouses enable the glass to absorb solar radiation at a much higher efficiency.

Cao’s team set up more than a dozen pollution monitoring stations in the area to test the tower’s impact.

The average reduction in PM2.5 – the fine particles in smog deemed most harmful to health – fell 15 per cent during heavy pollution.

Are China’s new green taxes tough enough to fight pollution?

Cao said the results were preliminary because the experiment is still ongoing. The team plans to release more detailed data in March with a full scientific assessment of the facility’s overall performance.

The Xian smog tower project was launched by the academy in 2015 and construction was completed last year at a development zone in the Chang’an district. The purpose of the project was to find an effective, low cost method to artificially remove pollutants from the atmosphere. The cost of the project was not disclosed.

What was previously thought to be the largest smog tower in China was built last year by Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde at 798, a creative park in Beijing.

The seven-metre (23-feet) tall tower produced about eight cubic metres (282.5 cubic feet) of clean air per second. It was entirely powered by electricity, most of which is generated by coal-fired power plants in China.

Cao, however, said their tower in Xian required little power to run.

“It barely requires any power input throughout daylight hours. The idea has worked very well in the test run,” he said.

From ionising towers to bicycles, Dutchman’s smog-removing inventions stand to clear the air in polluted China

Several people in Xian told the South China Morning Post they had noticed the difference since the tower started operating.

A manager at a restaurant about 1km (0.62 miles) northwest of the facility said she had noticed an improvement in air quality this winter, although she was previously unaware of the purpose of the tower. “I do feel better,” she said.

A student studying environmental science at Shaanxi Normal University, also a few hundred metres from the tower, said the improvement was quite noticeable.

“I can’t help looking at the tower each time I pass. It’s very tall, very eye-catching, but it’s also very quiet. I can’t hear any wind going in or out,” she said. “The air quality did improve. I have no doubt about that.”

However, a teacher at the Meilun Tiancheng Kindergarten on the edge of the 10-square-kilometre (3.86-square-mile) zone said she had felt no change. “It’s just as bad as elsewhere,” she said.

The experimental facility in Xian is a scaled-down version of a much bigger smog tower that Cao and his colleagues hope to build in other cities in China in the future.

A full-sized tower would reach 500 metres (1,640 feet) high with a diameter of 200 metres (656 feet), according to a patent application they filed in 2014.

The size of the greenhouses could cover nearly 30 square kilometres (11.6 square miles) and the plant would be powerful enough to purify the air for a small sized city.


China builds ‘world’s biggest air purifier’ (and it seems to be working) | South China Morning Post

https://twitter.com/x/status/986552410125492224

Air purification tower cuts PM2.5 by 15 pct: researcher
Source: Xinhua| 2018-04-18 19:03:54|Editor: Yurou


XI'AN, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Testing has shown that 60-meter-tall air purification tower in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, can cut the average PM2.5 density by 15 percent over an area of 10 square kilometers.

Researchers released the test results of the tower's purification capability at a press conference on Tuesday.

On severely polluted days, the tower can purify five million cubic meters of polluted air on a daily basis, according to Cao Junji, researcher with Institute of Earth Environment under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The air purification tower, with a diameter of 10 meters, is a part of a scientific research project led by several organizations including the institute.

A glass enclosure surrounds the base of the tower. The polluted air inside the enclosure is heated by solar energy. The hot air rises and moves freely inside the tower, passing through layers of filters.

The tower was built in 2016 in Xi'an, a city which has long been troubled by heavy air pollution in winter. The tower is still undergoing testing.

The causes of air pollution in China are complicated and it is difficult to work out a universal solution, Cao said, admitting that the purification tower project is a supplementary method and cannot replace the major measures such as controlling pollution at the source.

 

[JSCh]

Scientists Reveal Trends in Carbon Storage and Sequestration Across Chinese Ecosystems
Apr 18, 2018

Climate change is a one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015, became the second legally binding climate agreement after the Kyoto Protocol, and coordinates global efforts to combat climate change.

As a party to the Paris Agreement and the largest developing country, China has adjusted economic development models and promoted technological progress in energy conservation.

However, with rapid economic development, it is difficult to achieve deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. China is facing growing pressure to achieve its goals associated with the Paris Agreement.

Carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems is one of the most economically and environmentally friendly ways to mitigate atmospheric CO2 concentrations. How to improve carbon storage and carbon sequestration of terrestrial ecosystems is not only a cutting edge field within global change research, but also the key scientific foundation for the mitigation of climate change.

Led by Professor FANG Jingyun from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), together with collaborators, the ecosystem carbon sequestration project team was set up.

Under the framework of the five-year Strategic Priority Research Program "Climate Change: Carbon Budget and Relevant Issues" initiated by CAS in January 2011, the team aims to quantify the magnitude and distribution of ecosystem carbon pools and sequestration in China's terrestrial ecosystems.

From 2011 to 2015, the project team conducted an intensive nationwide field study of vegetation, soils and habitats using consistent research designs and protocols.

This study involved more than 350 researchers, covered more than 17,000 quadrats of China's terrestrial ecosystem, including forests, grasslands, shrubs, and farmland, and collected approximate 600,000 vegetation and soil samples.

Since January 2015, Prof. FANG has led the research group to use datasets from the study to answer questions of interest to scientists and policymakers in the fields of global change, the carbon cycle and general ecology.

The group recently published seven papers for a special feature in PNAS entitled "Climate change, human impacts, and carbon sequestration in China." The work represented a prodigious effort and important scholarly accomplishment.

In this special feature, the research group clarified the structure and function of China's terrestrial ecosystem and its response to climate change and human activity; quantified the intensity and spatial distribution of carbon sequestration capacity in China's terrestrial ecosystem; and quantified the effects of biodiversity and nutrient conditions on the productivity of the ecosystem on a macro scale.

They showed that four major terrestrial ecosystems (forest, grassland, shrubland, and cropland) stored a total of 94.4 petagrams (Pg) of carbon and sequestered a total of 201.1 teragrams (Tg) of carbon per year from 2001-2010.

The forest, shrubland, and cropland ecosystems are significant carbon sinks, but the grassland ecosystem is a very weak carbon source. These carbon stock changes are largely attributed to climate change, ecological restoration projects, and cropland management.

The team also showed that species diversity and species traits play a strong role in managing soil carbon storage and gross primary production is closely coupled with patterns of nitrogen and phosphorus stoichiometry.

Studies described in this special feature demonstrate that climate and land-use changes have profoundly altered the structure and function of China's terrestrial ecosystems and their carbon storage.

Restoration regimes and agricultural management practices that integrate economic and policy-incentives were particularly effective in facilitating ecosystem carbon sequestration.

These findings provide new insights into the role of human intervention in facilitating ecosystem carbon storage and offer useful lessons to other developing countries that are experiencing similar economic and social transformation.

The work was supported by the five-year Strategic Priority Research Program "Climate Change: Carbon Budget and Relevant Issues" initiated by CAS.

Climate change, human impacts, and carbon sequesteration in China (Image By FANG Jingyun)


Scientists Reveal Trends in Carbon Storage and Sequestration Across Chinese Ecosystems---Chinese Academy of Sciences

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China's terrestrial ecosystems play key role in carbon sink: research
Source: Xinhua| 2018-04-18 13:27:37|Editor: Lifang


BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China's terrestrial ecosystems, including forests, shrubs and farmlands, have played an important role in storing carbon emissions over the past decades, Chinese research has shown.

A study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the United States on Wednesday, found that China's forests, shrubs and croplands sequestrated 201.1 million tonnes of carbon every year from 2001 to 2010, which offset 14.1 percent of the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels in China during the same period.

China's forests are the major carbon sinks, contributing 80 percent of the carbon storage by terrestrial ecosystems, while the croplands and shrub lands make up 12 percent and 8 percent respectively, the research showed.

"These carbon stock changes are largely attributed to climate change, ecological restoration projects and cropland management," said Fang Jingyun, lead scientist of the research and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

In particular, China's six major ecological restoration schemes the Natural Forest Protection Project, the Shelter Forest Program in northern, northeastern and northwestern China, the Grain for Green Program, the Returning Grazing Land to Grassland Project, the Yangtze River and Zhujiang River Shelter Forest Projects and the Beijing-Tianjin Sand Source Control Project - have contributed 36.8 percent of the total carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems, Fang said.

Reviewers of PNAS commented that the study is important because it demonstrates how ecosystem restoration can play a substantial role in climate change mitigation.

"The decade from 2001 to 2010 was a period when China made a rapid economic development. It's a remarkable achievement that China's terrestrial ecosystems could offset 14.1 percent of the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels," Fang said.

Yu Guirui, deputy director of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the CAS, said the research shows that China has great potential in carbon sequestration.

"Previously people were not sure whether we could mitigate climate warming by artificial means. China has implemented so many ecological programs, which were originally for the purpose of ecological protection. But our research demonstrates that those projects also play an important role in carbon sink," Yu said.

"In our previous study, we also found the phenomenon of carbon increase in farmlands in some regions. But we lacked comprehensive data. Through this research we are now confident that China's advancement in agriculture management not only guarantees grain production but also contributes to carbon sequestration."

Yu called on the government to continue to support basic investigation and research to get a clearer understanding of China's carbon sinks.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity. The Paris Agreement, which took effect on November 4, 2016, became the second legally binding climate agreement after the Kyoto Protocol, and coordinates global efforts to combat climate change.

As a party to the Paris Agreement and the largest developing country, China has implemented a strategic plan to adjust economic development models and promote technological progress in energy conservation and emissions reduction. This strategy has led to remarkable achievements in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

However, with rapid economic development, China is facing growing pressure to further reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems is one of the most economically and environmentally friendly ways to mitigate atmospheric CO2 concentrations, said Fang.

"How to improve the carbon storage and carbon sequestration of terrestrial ecosystems is not only a cutting-edge field of global change research, but also the key scientific foundation for the mitigation of climate change," Fang said.

To this end, the CAS initiated a five-year strategic priority research program, "Climate Change: Carbon Budget and Relevant Issues", in January 2011. Under the program, a research team was set up to study the impacts of climate change and human activities on the structure and functioning of ecosystems, with an emphasis on quantifying the magnitude and distribution of ecosystem carbon pools and sequestration in China's terrestrial ecosystems.

From 2011 to 2015, the team of more than 350 researchers conducted a nationwide field survey of vegetation, soils and habitats in China's terrestrial ecosystem, including forests, grasslands, shrubs and farmlands.

The research demonstrated that climate and land-use changes have profoundly altered the structures and functions of China's terrestrial ecosystems and their carbon storage. Restoration regimes and agricultural management practices that integrate economic and policy incentives were particularly effective in facilitating ecosystem carbon sequestration, Fang said.

"These findings provide new insights into the role of human intervention in facilitating ecosystem carbon storage, and offer useful lessons to other developing countries that are experiencing similar economic and social transformations," Fang said.

 

[JSCh]

Workers devote themselves into desertification control of Kubuqi Desert in N China
Xinhua | Updated: 2018-04-22 11:51

Aerial photo taken on April 21, 2018 shows workers planting trees on the Kubuqi Desert in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Thousands of workers devote themselves into the desertification control of Kubuqi Desert in April and May every year, during which they live on the desert, plant trees and set obstacles to fix the sand. By far, 25 percent of the Kubuqi Desert has gotten rid of desertification. [Photo/Xinhua]

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[JSCh]

Health benefits four times more than cost of China's climate policy: MIT study
Source: Xinhua | 2018-04-24 02:34:24 | Editor: huaxia

File Photo: A man rides in heavy fog and haze in Jinan City, capital of east China's Shandong Province, Jan. 4, 2017. The provincial meteorological observatory issued a red alert for fog and extended its orange alert for smog on the day. (Xinhua/Zhu Zheng)

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Xinhua) -- An American team of economists and atmospheric scientists reported that by meeting its greenhouse gas-reduction goals, China will experience air quality and health benefits with associated monetary savings that could offset the total cost of implementing the climate policy.

A new study, published on Monday in Nature Climate Change, estimated fewer deaths from air pollution means a 339 billion U.S. dollars savings in 2030 that could be about four times what it would cost China to meet its climate goals.

"The country could actually come out net positive, just based on the health co-benefits associated with air quality improvements, relative to the cost of a climate policy," said study co-author Noelle Eckley Selin, an associate professor in Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Institute (MIT) for Data, Systems, and Society.

The study was led by Selin and Valerie Karplus, an economist in MIT's Sloan School of Management.

China has pledged to reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions in an international effort to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

The team developed a new modeling approach which combines an energy-economic model called the China Regional Energy Model (C-REM) with GEOS-Chem, an atmospheric chemistry model.

C-REM models China's economy and energy system at a provincial level, and the researchers used the model to simulate how a given climate policy changes a province's economic activity, energy use, and emissions of carbon dioxide and air pollutants.

They ran simulations under four stringency scenarios: a no-policy, business-as-usual scenario; and three different policy scenarios that aimed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by three, four, and five percent per year, respectively, through 2030.

The four percent scenario is in line with China's pledge to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 under the Paris Agreement.

The team then plugged the results of each scenario into the GEOS-Chem model, which simulates how the various emissions and pollutants produced by C-REM combine in the atmosphere to form particulate matter province by province.

They overlayed this map of particulate concentrations onto population maps to calculate the amount of pollution that communities are breathing in, then consulted epidemiological literature to determine the number of avoided deaths that would occur, based on a province's exposure to a certain amount of pollution.

Finally, the researchers calculated the economic value of these deaths using standard methods, and compared this with the total cost of implementing a given policy scenario.

In sum, the team found that, under a no-policy scenario, China would suffer more than 2.3 million premature, pollution-related deaths by 2030.

If the country adopts a climate policy to reduce emissions by three, four, or five percent per year, it would avoid 36,000, 94,000, and 160,000 premature deaths, respectively.

After converting each scenario's health co-benefits into a monetary value, the team found that, compared to the total cost of implementing a three, four, or five percent per year policy, the savings gained as a result of health co-benefits equals 138.4 billion, 339.6 billion, and 534.8 billion dollars, respectively.

In the four percent scenario, which is most in line with China's actual climate pledge, a net co-benefit of 339.6 billion dollars would be about four times the cost of implementing the policy itself.

Selin and Karplus say that, in China's case, improvements to air quality and human health would increase with more stringent climate policies, mainly because the country's energy is so heavily reliant on coal.

"In China, as you go to tighter and tighter climate policies, you continue to reduce pollutant emissions from coal, whereas the U.S. has already reduced a lot of its air pollution from coal through end-of-pipe technologies," Karplus said.

"The incremental reductions you're taking are coming from a fuel with a very high carbon content, which is also the major source of air pollution."

The team stresses that a climate policy alone will not solve any country's air pollution problems. However, the study shows that significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will result in better air quality, compared to continuing along on a business-as-usual path.

"This is really a sustainability story," Selin says. "We have all these policy goals for a transition toward a more sustainable society. Mitigating air pollution, a leading cause of death, is one of them, and avoiding dangerous climate change is another."

 

[JSCh]

China is going green. Here's how
26 Apr 2018
Sha Song Specialist, Knowledge Networks and Sustainable Development, World Economic Forum Beijing.

Image: Reuters

After years of heavy industrialization, China’s environmental challenges are nearing a tipping point.

The factories and power plants that have driven its economic growth have also polluted its air, water and soil, to the point where environmental hazards could lead to a significant risk to China’s society and economy, if not corrected in a timely manner. In a bid to tackle these challenges, China’s government has declared a “war on pollution” and introduced a number of green initiatives.

Here are the most important ones:

Less coal, cleaner air

China has taken steps to dismantle coal-fired power plants, reduce overall emission levels and cut particulate-matter emission rates. Huge progress has been made on air quality, and there are now fewer smog days in China’s largest cities.

Better regulation

The former Ministry for Environmental Protection has been transformed into the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), a new entity with broader, clearer responsibilities. The new ministry will oversee all water-related policies, for example, from ocean resources management to groundwater. Previously, these were scattered among different departments. The ministry is also in charge of policies on climate change.

Funding a greener future

China needs an estimated additional RMB 40.3 trillion ($6.4 trillion) to RMB 123.4 trillion ($19.4 trillion) to finance the transition to a greener economy. It has started collecting an environment tax to help fund its environmental policies, and is also trying to attract more green investment.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive global programme aimed at improving inter-connectivity between countries, inspired by the ancient Silk Road, seeks to boost trade and economic growth in Asia and beyond. As Vice Premier Liu He said at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos this year, reducing pollution is one of China’s main strategic goals as it pursues this initiative, along with preventing major financial risks and alleviating poverty.

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Years of life saved per person
Image: Image: China National Environmental Monitoring Center

The BRI will be backed by considerable resources. At maturity, investments in the initiative are expected to hit around $4 trillion, stemming from private sources, dedicated funds, and multilateral development banks. If aligned with sustainable development priorities, these resources have considerable potential to help advance the green agenda.

The next challenge is to improve green investment standards. Recently, China launched the Environmental Risk Management Initiative for China’s Overseas Investment. There is huge potential to “green” the Belt and Road Initiative, if Chinese financial institutions and enterprises improve the environmental risk management of their overseas investments and adopt responsible investment principles. Green bonds are a win-win for investors and developing countries, since they fund the green infrastructure projects that are so urgently needed by many of these countries.

Have you read?

• China's clean, green buildings of the future
• How China is embracing green energy
• China’s green growth agenda

Sustainable development zones

Earlier this year, the Chinese government approved three sustainable development zones, which will implement the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals:

• Shenzhen

Shenzhen is China’s innovation engine. This zone will integrate technologies in sewage treatment, waste utilization, ecological restoration, and artificial intelligence to solve issues from resource management to pollution.

• Guilin

This zone will focus on innovations that tackle desertification, creating solutions that can be replicated by other regions facing the threat of encroaching deserts.

• Taiyuan

Targeting air and water pollution, this zone will foster innovative solutions that can be replicated by regions relying on resource extraction.

Tech companies as green innovators

China’s technology giants play a vital role in sustainable development. Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba are among the world’s top 10 internet companies. Online technology – particularly e-commerce, internet banking and social media – is accelerating the pace of change.

For example, Ant Financial, a banking subsidiary of Alibaba, is a founding partner of the Green Digital Finance Alliance. This alliance aims to use digital technology to advance green finance.

Over 200 million of Ant’s users signed up to Ant Forest, an app that gamifies carbon footprint tracking. The app prompts users to cut greenhouse gas emissions in real life, demonstrating the massive potential of Fintech for supporting sustainable development. By the end of January 2017, the approach had saved 150,000 tonnes of CO2.



China is going green. Here’s how | World Economic Forum

 

[JSCh]

China increases public access to water quality info
Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-05 14:03:05|Editor: Yurou


BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhua) -- China is speeding up completion of a national surface water quality monitoring system.

People will be able to access water quality information online, according to a plan released Friday on the website of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE).

With automated monitoring stations, information will be updated every four hours instead of once a month as it is now.

China plans to have more than 2,000 monitoring stations by August, most of which will be open to the public.

The water stations are part of a national environmental monitoring network for air, water, soil, noise and radiation.

China is cleaning its water resources, with a tough water pollution law in effect.

 

[JSCh]

Rice farmers in Xinjiang show that small ideas can grow into big changes
New China TV
Published on May 17, 2018

Rice on desert? Right, on desert! In the arid region of #Xinjiang, farmers show that small ideas can grow into big changes

 

[JSCh]

Intelligent water device to help desert prevention
Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-21 18:52:44|Editor: mmm


LANZHOU, May 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists are building a water balance simulator to assist in prevention and control of desertification.

The automatic device was developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Shapotou Desert research and experiment station.

The device has the ability to simulate precipitation and control groundwater. It can simulate the rainfall of climatic zones in north China's sandy areas, track changes of water content in the soil and track the growth of the plants.

North China has about 1.7 million square kilometers of sandy areas, the country's most environmentally fragile regions, head of the Shapotou station Li Xinrong said.

Water content plays an important role in vegetation restoration and growth in sand areas, Li said. Quantitative assessment of water balance helps vegetation growth.

The device will provide theoretical and technical support for the restoration of the ecosystem.

 

[JSCh]

China helps Tajikistan tackle grassland degradation
Source: Xinhua| 2018-05-20 16:23:12|Editor: ZX


BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists will help Tajikistan investigate the grassland degradation of its alpine pastures in August.

Researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography under the Chinese Academy of Sciences worked with counterparts in Tajikistan this spring to investigate grassland degradation in southern, northern and eastern regions.

They traveled about 1,200 kilometers to study and collect samples of vegetation, soil and microorganisms. They also investigated livestock farming methods and surveyed local families.

Li Yaoming, of the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, said Tajikistan had suffered serious grassland degradation in recent years as a result of population growth, a warmer climate, melting glaciers, frequent extreme weather events and overgrazing.

The number of cattle there jumped from one million in the 1990s to six million in 2010.

Chinese researchers will also investigate grassland issues in central Asian countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan and offer solutions to problems.

They will introduce technologies and management methods that have proved effective in China to help the construction of a "green Silk Road," said Li.

 

[JSCh]

Scientists Aim to Clean Up China's Waterways With Pollution-Adsorbent Material
XU WEI
DATE: THU, 05/24/2018 - 10:53 / SOURCE:YICAI

Scientists Aim to Clean Up China's Waterways With Pollution-Adsorbent Material​

(Yicai Global) May 24 -- Chinese scientists have started testing a new material capable of converting particle pollution into water and carbon dioxide, which could become a key method in the country's efforts to clean up its lakes and rivers.

The researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences' Shanghai Institute of Ceramics have conducted trials using nets made from the innovative material over the past month to clean up waterways in eastern Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, as well as in Shanghai municipality, reported Xinhua News Agency.

More than 50 patents have been granted for the material so far and the team, led by institute researcher Huang Fuqiang, won second prize at the State Natural Science Award at the beginning of the year.

The material is a mixture of three-dimensional graphene tubes and black titanium dioxide, and the mechanism is physical adsorption combined with photochemical catalytic degradation. The graphene absorbs toxins and the titanium dioxide acts as a photocatalyst, while using light to degrade toxic organics to carbon dioxide and water. The increased oxygen content enforces the river's ability to restore natural balance.

Residents at one of the test areas, Shanghai's Tianshan Park and Zhongshan Park, said that lakes used to be filled with stinking sludge, with dead fish floating on the surface. After a seven-day treatment, indicators for water purity such as chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, and phosphorus content decreased with its quality returning to a level suitable for agricultural purposes, according to tests done by Shanghai Light Industry Institute of Environmental Technology.

In another test zone in Feidong county, Anhui, the team treated the seriously polluted upper and middle reaches of the Dingguang River. Water quality improved by around 60 percent, said Xue Tiecheng, a director from the Feidong Environmental Protection Bureau.

 

[TaiShang]

Environment cleanup underway under Mt Qomolangma
Xinhua, May 29, 2018

Dondrup, 30, looks a lot older than his age. Constant exposure to the sun in a low-oxygen environment has left his face leathery and wrinkled.

Founded this year, the Mount Qomolangma environment squad has 30 members. Dondrup is a garbage picker at the base camp of the northern face of Mount Qomolangma, the world's highest peak. In the off-season, he is a doctor in Tosanglin village at the foot of the mountain, but has been working as a janitor during the climbing season for three years.

Most of environment squad are guides or liaison officers from climbers' association. Dondrup is one of only three local people on the team.

The three work from 5,200 meters at base camp to 6,500 meters. A single collection expedition can take eight hours.

"We do a lot of walking. One worker collects only 10 kilograms of garbage each day," he said. Dondrup is paid 4,500 yuan (about 714 U.S. dollars) every month, which is not much compared to villagers working in other sectors.

"I don't do it for money. My family have lived here for generations. It is my job to protect the mountain," he said. "A lot of tourists and climbers come now and leave a lot behind. We must work hard to keep up."

The climbing season starts around the end of March and ends at the end of May on the north face. After the season ends, a cleanup campaign will be carried out in areas above 5,100 meters.

Tibet regional sports bureau gives two garbage sacks to each climbing team. Everyone descending the mountain needs to carry at least eight kilograms of garbage with them. If their garbage weighs less than that amount, they are charged.

Penma Trinley, deputy director of the Tibetan Mountaineering Association, said garbage dumped on the mountain this year is usually taken down the mountain the following year so that the workers are focused on safety rather than garbage.

"Now that we have an environment team, we are much more efficient. We do not wait a year to process the garbage," he said.

Similar cleanup teams are to be set up on Mount Qowowuyag and Mount Shishabangma, also over 8,000 meters, said Penma Trinley.

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2018-05/29/content_51530604.htm

 

[JSCh]

China's forestation success could help other countries
By Xin Wen | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2018-06-08 16:38

A comparison showing Huguan county, Shanxi province, before and after 40 years of afforestation. [Photo/Xinhua]

Experiences gained from 40 years of forestation in North, Northwest and Northeast China could be helpful to other developing countries and China would like to share its experiences with them, a senior forestry official said Friday.

As the largest ecological engineering project in the world, the Three-North Shelter Forest Program kicked off in 1978, placing forest windbreaks in 13 provincial areas in North, Northwest and Northeast China. The planned afforestation area will be 35.08 million hectares between 1978 and 2050, and the forest coverage rate in the project area will rise to 14.95 percent by 2050, up from 5.05 percent in 1978.

Thanks to 40 years of efforts, the forest coverage rate in the project area had reached 13.02 percent by the end of 2015, according to official data provided by the bureau.

Most of the project area used to suffer from desertification and serious soil erosion. But since the project entered its fifth phase starting from 2011, the hazards of sandstorms and the serious situation of water and soil erosion had been alleviated, said Zhang Wei, the bureau director, at a symposium.

"We can clearly see how the engineering construction played a major role in preserving the water and soil protection by reducing the sediment that flew into the Yellow River," Zhang said.

Although farming fields were converted to forests, this has not sacrificed farmers' incomes, according to Peng Youdong, deputy head of the State Administration of Forestry and Grassland.

The greening work boosted the local economy through tourism and planting fruit trees, Peng said.

Three main forestry and fruit bases had been built in the Loess Plateau, Xinjiang and Yanshan Mountain areas, which lifted 4.33 million people out of poverty by the end of 2015, he said.

Peng said China hopes to further strengthen more cooperation with countries taking part in the Belt and Road Initiative in environmental protection.

"We hope to promote international cooperation in forestry and grasslands with more countries in a wider range," Peng said.

Foreign diplomatic envoys who attended the symposium said that the ecological defense of China's Three-North areas set a good example for other developing countries in preserving harsh environments' ecological protection and changing the terrain.

"Poverty alleviation and social development had been an important part of our country," said Fernando Lugris, Uruguay's ambassador to China. "China is helping us to solve the current issues and we would love to work together with the Chinese government for further development in sustainable use."

Mashudu Silimela, the agriculture, forestry and fisheries counselor of the South African Embassy in Beijing, said South Africa is also facing a serious water and soil erosion situation.

"A combination of planting trees also provided an effective way for our country to solve the ecological issues and to preserve the water and soil," Silimela said.