2009-03-20 10:58:48     CRIENGLISH.com         Web Editor: Xu Liuliu

China’s water issue has been highlighted as the World Water Day falls on this Sunday. Professor Wang Guangqian, China’s leading expert on water protection, says the overall water environment in the country has improved through years of effort. However, he points out that the water quality is still poor.
Tu Yun has more.

Reporter:

Professor Wang Guangqian says China is experiencing rapid economic and industrial development. And this has resulted in excessive industrial sewage, which overflows into rivers and considerably contaminates the quality of water.
"A profit-oriented economic structure is the essential cause. An increase of GDP is based on high consumption. High consumption leads to high sewage and pollution levels."
Professor Wang says another cause of dirty water is people’s lack of awareness about cleanliness by allowing excrement to overflow into drainage systems and rivers. He indicates that enhancing people’s environmental awareness is crucial.
"Environmental protection, especially water protection, should be everyone’s business. Nowadays, many people only care about their own well being and not the harm they do to others by the polluting. We should educate more on the environment-protecting awareness."
Shao Lei is a PhD student studying water protection. He says the lessons they have at school about helping people enhance water-protecting awareness are insufficient.

"Lessons about environment protection should be established from primary and secondary school onwards. In some foreign countries, we see environment-protecting lessons are set up from Kindergarten onwards. Special pictures and video readable for students are designed to demonstrate to students how a clean river is polluted, to tell them water is closely related to their lives. We should learn from them to use an easy way to cultivate people’s water-protecting awareness from when they are still a child."

Agreeing with Professor Wang Guangqian, Shao Lei says a new economic model, which is water-friendly, should be further developed. Water protection must be included in any economy development plan.

Above all, Professor Wang Guangqian emphasizes that the relevant legal system should be further improved to monitor water-protecting units and to punish severely those polluting behaviors.

Tu Yun, CRI News.

Source:

http://english.cri.cn/7146/2009/03/20/1241s466465.htm#