Underground water in 90 percent of Chinese cities is polluted, China's environmental bureau said yesterday, sparking concerns over the safety of drinking water for most of the 1.3-billion-strong population.
The deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration Zhang Lijun (張力軍) described the situation as "serious," China News Service said.
China is slowly starting to count the environmental cost of two decades of stellar economic growth, with industrial and human pollutants finding their way into the ecosystem.
"A survey showed that underground water in 90 percent of Chinese cities has been polluted by organic and inorganic pollutants, and there are signs that [the pollution] is spreading," it reported.
The pollution is generally caused by industrial waste from factories or untreated human waste discharged into rivers and then seeping into the ground.
Underground water is the source of drinking water for nearly 70 percent of China's population and is the source of some 40 percent of the country's agricultural irrigation, the report said.
It said the water pollution, which was worst in northern cities, was causing direct economic losses of tens of billion of yuan, or billions of dollars, not to mention "countless" indirect losses.
"In the next 25 years, China's water situation will face enormous pressure under a new round of economic growth," the report quoted Zhang as saying.
"It will be a key period as to whether [we] can limit the deterioration of water quality," he said.
The report said that the environmental bureau had already launched projects last year to prevent the pollution of underground water and protect drinking water.
Two large industrial toxic spills in China's rivers in as many months forced authorities to launch major cleanup campaigns and cut the drinking water supply to millions of people over health fears.
Underground water resources are also being overtapped at unsustainable levels in 164 regions, according to earlier state reports.
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