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Water pollution little changed, team finds

2014-07-09 15:00 Shanghai Daily Web Editor: Si Huan
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Environmental experts and volunteers collect water samples during the one-day field trip around Shanghai.

Environmental experts and volunteers collect water samples during the one-day field trip around Shanghai.

A water quality investigation team that checked the water quality in the Huangpu River's upper reaches and the Dianshan Lake region returned to Shanghai in late June with mixed results.

The mission, titled "Jingze Plan" (jingze literally means clean lake) this year, was part of a project to research and analyze the drinking water quality in 20 cities around China in three months.

The one-day field trip in Shanghai visited eight sampling locations on June 26. The team was made up of environmental experts, students and media professionals.

A year ago, Shanghai Daily joined a team checking the source of drinking water in the upper reaches of the Huangpu River just two months after the shocking incident of thousands of dead pigs floating in the river.

The water quality this time had improved over last year, but the problems remain.

As Shanghai is at lower reach of the Yangtze River, industrial and agricultural pollution from upstream provinces gathers here and becomes a major threat to ensuring safe water in the city.

While water is abundant as rivers, creeks and lakes are found everywhere in the region and annual rainfall is significant, the amount of clean water is scarce.

As a passive recipient of the water pollution, Shanghai has to rely on good water-treatment technology to solve the problem.

"The drinking water quality in Shanghai relies totally on the economic development and ecological environment in the upstream regions," says Zhang Junfeng, who led the mission this year and also started the amateur environmental protection organization Le Shui Xing (happy water trip) that has observed the rivers in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province since 2007.

"So it's crucial to cooperate with upstream provinces to balance the ecological environment in order to ensure the safety of drinking water in Shanghai," he says.

With the use of quick water-quality examination kits, the team tested on site for PH value, dissolved oxygen (DO), permanganate index, ammonia nitrogen and phosphorus (P). The water samples were taken from the surface of the water body. Because it was raining, the pollution was slightly diluted.

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