ABSTRACT
In June 2014, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) released a report which stated that close to 60 per cent of groundwater monitored by 4,778 stations was rated as bad or very bad (Yin, 2015). Forty per cent of the water in the seven major river systems was found polluted and unsafe to drink. Furthermore, 17 of 31 major freshwater lakes had varying levels of pollution, “including China’s two biggest lakes, Poyang and Dongting, both of which have also shrunk significantly compared to the area they covered at their recorded peaks”. Moreover, in 2014 China Central Television aired a special programme on water contamination and reported that sample tests of the seven major waterways showed traces of antibiotics, with the Pearl River being the most severely polluted.
