The Municipal Committee of Population, Resources and Environment of China People's Political Consultative Conference and China Development Research Institute jointly organized the investigation team of "Ten Miles to Protect the Yangtze River". After investigating the main basins of the Yangtze River, we brought back a result that made us deeply worried: the ecological life of the Yangtze River is only ten years! This result was written into a special investigation report and reported to the Central Committee, which attracted great attention from the State Council, and the protection of the Yangtze River became a national focus topic for a while.
Zhang Qi, Executive Dean of China Development Research Institute, said in an exclusive interview with Weekend that the economy along the Yangtze River has developed rapidly, but the concept of environmental protection has not improved at the same time. Last year, the agency's investigation on "protecting the Yangtze River from thousands of miles" found that there were 1985 126 species of benthos in the Yangtze River estuary, and only 52 species were left in 2002; The forest coverage in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River has plummeted from 60% to 80% to 5% to 7%.
The pollution of the Yangtze River water also directly affects the drinking water safety of residents along the Yangtze River. Zhang Qi pointed out that most of the 38 main tributaries of the Yangtze River do not meet the safety water quality standards, and many areas have become high-risk areas for cancer. Officials in coastal cities know that drinking Yangtze River water may cause cancer, so they drink bottled water themselves, but they continue to let residents drink unqualified Yangtze River water.
The following is an exclusive interview with Zhang Qi (Executive Dean of China Development Research Institute, initiator, witness and vociferator of "Protecting the Yangtze River") and Dan Zhiqiang (Executive Editor of chinese national geography and main planner and creator of Wen Jiang album) who participated in these investigation activities:
Yangtze River: Only ten years left in ecological life?
The total basin area of the Yangtze River basin accounts for 54% of the national and national available water resources, and the GDP of the Yangtze River basin also accounts for 54% of the national GDP.
90% of untreated industrial sewage, pesticides, fertilizers and domestic sewage are directly discharged into rivers, and the sewage discharge per kloc-0/s reaches 3 tons, with an average annual sewage discharge of 25.6 billion tons.
60% of the water bodies in the main stream of the Yangtze River are polluted to varying degrees, endangering the drinking water of more than 500 cities along the Yangtze River.
The highest forest coverage rate in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River is 60% to 80%, and now it is 5% to 7%, so the sediment flowing into the Yangtze River reaches 2.4 billion tons every year.
During the period of 1985, a total of 126 species of benthos were observed in the Yangtze River estuary. In 2002, there were only 52 species left.
..... The above is a set of data extracted from the research report "Protecting the Yangtze River". If such a set of figures can't reflect the shocking problem, how do we feel when we hear that the Yangtze River will collapse in ten years? Since the emergence of civilization in China, the Yangtze River has nurtured people on both sides of the strait like a mother. The aorta on this 9.6 million square kilometers of land has continuously injected vitality into China. People's endless squeezing made her tired. When the China Municipal Committee of Population, Resources and Environment of the People's Political Consultative Conference and the China Development Research Institute jointly organized the "Ten Miles to Protect the Yangtze River" investigation team, after investigating the main river basins, it brought back a result that made us deeply worried: the ecological life of the Yangtze River is only ten years! This result was written into a special investigation report and reported to the Central Committee, which attracted great attention from the State Council, and the protection of the Yangtze River became a national focus topic for a while.
A few days ago, Weekend interviewed Zhang Qi (the executive director of China Development Research Institute, the initiator, witness and shout of "Protecting the Yangtze River") and Dan Zhiqiang (the executive editor of chinese national geography and the main planner and creator of the album "Wen Jiang"), who participated in these investigation activities, and unveiled that shocking scene.
Weekend: In the past, public attention has been focused on the management of the Yellow River and Huaihe River. People seem to believe too much in the "broad mind" of the Yangtze River, and few people are worried about its health problems. What caused your concern about the pollution in the Yangtze River?
Zhang Qi: Actually, it comes from accident. When I notice those accidental things around me and connect them, it becomes an inevitable problem. In 2003, I went to a city along the river in Jiangsu. At that time, it was the peak season of swordfish, but the swordfish on the market were rare commodities, and it was difficult to buy a catty of wild swordfish for 5,000 yuan. The local fisherman told me that he stayed on the river for a whole week and only caught 5 Jin of swordfish. I remember that this would never happen two or three years before this. One or two hundred yuan can buy a catty of swordfish. This aroused my vigilance. When I think about it carefully, not only swordfish, but also many precious fish species in the Yangtze River can't be eaten. At present, the aquatic products market basically sells domestic products. I began to realize that the water quality of the Yangtze River may be deteriorating rapidly. From June 5438 to October 2004, I returned to my hometown and learned that three relatives and friends had died of esophageal cancer and gastric cancer. I think their illness has something to do with "water quality problems", but their families don't realize it, and they just blame "bad life"
A Yellow River flows eastward.
Weekend: How different is the Yangtze River from what most of us remember?
Zhang Qi: I remember a song called Song of the Yangtze River 20 years ago. There is such a lyric in it: "You irrigated the land of flowers with pure and clean water!" I think most people's impression of the Yangtze River is still stuck in this lyric. In fact, before the dry season in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, there was still a clear stream here. I grew up near the Yangtze River, and the clear Yangtze River is the best place for us to swim.
But now this beautiful scene no longer exists, and it has become "the Yellow River flows eastward". In Chongqing, the deterioration of water quality is particularly serious. The water in the Yangtze River is grayish yellow and contains a lot of sediment, while the water in the Jialing River is blue. This has become a local wonder: the intersection of the two rivers is distinct, one blue and one yellow, and the dividing line is particularly obvious. The locals said that just three years ago, it was clear to put your feet into the river, but now it is difficult to do it. The difference in water quality of the Yangtze River can be seen.
The upstream is already like this, and the middle and lower reaches are not much better. At the mouth of the Yangtze River in Shanghai, all you can see is a muddy river. These are all due to the direct discharge of sewage along the river. The Yangtze River now consumes 25.6 billion tons of sewage every year. Three tons of sewage are discharged into the Yangtze River every second. At present, the actual sewage discharge of the Yangtze River has far exceeded that of Huanghuai, and most people simply don't realize this.
I'm afraid it's not an exaggeration to describe the river surface of some sections with garbage pools. In the Three Gorges reservoir area alone, the total amount of domestic garbage piled up is 3.8 million tons, and the amount of industrial solid waste piled up is more than 30 million tons. In the flood season, the garbage discarded in the upper reaches was washed to the lower reaches of the middle reaches by the flood. On the Three Gorges River, domestic and industrial garbage, oily liquid, dead cattle and dead sheep are covered in a vast expanse of whiteness, becoming a white pollution area. The sewage discharged into the Yangtze River can still be integrated with the river water, and these solid wastes float on the water surface, which will be blocked when encountering the dam, up to 4 meters, seriously affecting the power generation of the dam. There are 2 1 city in the main stream of the Yangtze River. The garbage pollution areas in Chongqing, Yueyang, Wuhan, Nanjing, Zhenjiang and Shanghai have accounted for 73% of the total length of the pollution areas in the main stream of the Yangtze River, and the pollution problem is particularly prominent.
What shocked me even more was not the pollution of the water quality of the Yangtze River, but the weak environmental awareness of the residents along the Yangtze River. In the rivers of some cities, the river is dark because of the influence of the river, but there are still farmers fishing here. The fish caught there have long been polluted by highly toxic substances. Don't eat it, just smell it. That thick rancid smell can turn your stomach upside down. But the locals don't think so: whatever, eat it, I often eat it.
Exchange environmental benefits for economic benefits.
Weekend: It seems that the most polluted reaches are all economically developed areas in the Yangtze River Basin. Is the severity of pollution directly proportional to the local GDP?
Zhang Qi: The main pollution sources in the Yangtze River Basin are industrial and mining wastewater and urban domestic sewage. Do you know what these enterprises are? Chongqing is a small coking and smelting enterprise. Speaking of Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu, there are many large-scale heavily polluting enterprises such as steel, shipbuilding and ship dismantling along the Yangtze River. In a city along the Yangtze River, dozens of kilometers of banks are lined with heavily polluting enterprises such as steel mills, chemical plants, paper mills, shipyards and shipyards. Some city leaders proudly talk about it as the result of their investment promotion. What's more, the sewage treatment devices of these enterprises are almost "deaf ears", and about 90% of the sewage is directly discharged into the Yangtze River without treatment. In some places, enterprises are allowed to pay the Environmental Protection Bureau to directly discharge pollutants. Some local officials don't care about this: "The Yangtze River waterway transportation cost is low, and it is convenient to discharge pollutants. The Yangtze River is full of water and sewage rushes into the East China Sea. "
According to the Annual Report of China's Environmental Statistics (2003), the total amount of wastewater discharged in the Yangtze River Basin in that year was 65.438+0.639 billion tons, including 7.25 billion tons of industrial wastewater and 96.5438+0.4 billion tons of domestic sewage. There are 17 1 town sewage treatment plants in the main river basin, but the domestic sewage treatment rate is only 16.4%.
Weekend: Apart from directly discharging sewage, what other factors lead to the deterioration of water quality in the Yangtze River?
Zhang Qi: People often think that industrial wastewater is the main source of pollution. In fact, agricultural non-point source pollution has always been another major source of pollution in the Yangtze River basin. According to the estimated data of the State Environmental Protection Administration, the total amount of pollutants from agricultural non-point sources is even equivalent to that from industrial and domestic point sources, but this situation has not attracted enough attention. In my investigation, I found that farmers in rural areas are mainly middle-aged women and the elderly, and young people with higher education have gone out to work. These left-behind people generally lack environmental awareness and indiscriminately apply fertilizers and pesticides. Although the relevant departments promote environmental protection organic pesticides, many farmers refuse to use them in order to increase crop yield and shorten the growth cycle, resulting in a large number of chemical fertilizers and pesticides eroding large areas of farmland. Once it rains, chemicals that have invaded the surface will flow into rivers, causing large-scale pollution, leading to double pollution of land and water, and accelerating the deterioration of the entire ecosystem in the Yangtze River basin.
When I was a child, I liked to watch the boats coming and going on the river by the river. At that time, there were not many robot boats, mainly human boats or sailboats. Today, the shipping industry in the Yangtze River is very developed. There are more than 265,438+00,000 motorboats running on the water all year round. They produce 360 million tons of oily wastewater and domestic sewage and 75,000 tons of domestic garbage every year, and the final destination of these things is only the Yangtze River. In addition, oil and chemical pollution incidents caused by marine accidents occur from time to time, which poses a great threat to the water environment safety of the Yangtze River.
There is also the problem of "eutrophication". The so-called "eutrophication" refers to the continuous supplement and excessive accumulation of plant nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, etc.). ), and the water body is over-nourished, and algae and aquatic organisms multiply in large quantities, resulting in serious hypoxia and decomposition of toxic substances in the water body, thus causing serious adverse consequences to the water quality. The Yangtze River basin is the most concentrated area of freshwater lakes in China, and the eutrophication of these lakes is very serious. The eutrophication of lakes and reservoirs near coastal cities is particularly prominent, such as Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing and East Lake in Wuhan. After the second impoundment of the Three Gorges Dam in June 2003, six secondary rivers, such as Xiangxi River and Daning River, all appeared "water bloom" phenomenon.
Long-term logging leads to less than 25% forest coverage, more than 660,000 square kilometers of soil erosion, accounting for13 of the whole basin area, and the total annual soil erosion reaches 2.24 billion tons. So much soil has almost become the sediment of the Yangtze River, which has accelerated the process of swamping, shrinking and dying of lakes.
Unreasonable aquaculture has triggered a series of negative ecological effects. The predatory development of Honghu Lake has led to a sharp decline in aquatic plant biomass, a decrease in fish and waterfowl resources, and a continuous deterioration of the ecological environment.
Pollution area: officials drink pure water, while residents drink three kinds of water.
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