Some 1.07 billion cubic meters of water has been diverted from the Yangtze River, China's longest, this year to Lake Taihu in east China to treat the latter's water pollution.
Fang Lingdi, an official with the Taihu Lake Water Resources Protection Bureau under the Ministry of Water Resources, said the water diversion effort approved by the State Council has driven up the lake's water level by 10 centimeters.
Later this year, another 1.8 billion cubic meters of water will again be infused.
According to Fang, the diversion is made automatically through tidal force at ordinary times.
When an emergency occurs, water pumping driven by artificial power will be resorted to, she said.
Normally water is flowing slowly in Lake Taihu, thus severely hindering the treatment of pollution in and around the lake.
"Regular water infusion from the Yangtze River will not only replenish the lake with fresh, clean water but also accelerate both the rate of flow and the treatment process," Fang said.
Latest field surveys conducted jointly by environmental protection bureaus from cities along the lake have found that the content of major pollutants in the water such as phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium permanganate have dwindled by 56 percent, 25 percent and nine percent, respectively.
Being the third largest freshwater lake in China with an area of about 2,340 square kilometers, Lake Taihu is a major source of drinking water for people living in the
Shanghai Municipality and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, all booming areas in east China.
To date, a total of 10 million people have benefited from the improved water quality.
Meanwhile, blue algae, a longtime menace to aquatic breeding, has also been effectively curbed.
Gu Gang, deputy head of the
Wuxi City Environmental Protection Bureau, said the average density of blue algae in the lake has dropped from 22.2 million cells per liter in the first eight months last year to the current 3.56 million in the same period this year.
As the water gets cleaner, many more people would like to visit the lake for sightseeing. Prices for villas which once no-one wanted to buy have begin to ascend simply because of the improved environment.
Given the lake flows across an area of 36,900 sq km and has a direct bearing on the economic health of eastern China, experts say treatment of the lake's pollution cannot be delayed.
Statistics available show that the combined gross domestic product of the
Shanghai and part of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces through which the lake flows is as much as 20 percent of China's total though local population is only 8.3 percent of the national total population.
Dubbed as "a bright pearl of the Yangtze River delta" previously, the unique lake south of the Yangtze, teeming with fish and rice and renowned for its limpid water and its beautiful scenery, has begun to suffer severe pollution from the early 1980s after a huge amount of industrial wastes, untreated sewage, pesticides and fertilizers was discharged into it.
