China makes notable progress in water, soil conservation

BEIJING -- China has made notable progress in water and soil conservation during the past 30 years since the Water and Soil Conservation Law was promulgated in 1991.

The land area suffering from soil and water erosion in China has decreased from 3.67 million square km in the 1980s to 2.69 million square km in 2020, according to data released by the Ministry of Water Resources last year.

Since the promulgation of the law, a number of key projects have been carried out which effectively improved agricultural production and the ecological environment.

Changting county, a mountainous area in Fujian province that used to suffer from serious soil erosion, has seen significant changes in its ecological environment.

By the end of 2020, forests had covered 80.31 percent of the county and the area of soil erosion had been reduced to nearly one-fifth of the figure in the mid-1980s, thanks to the remediation and ecological restoration measures.

Soil erosion in the areas including the Loess Plateau, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Three Gorges Reservoir area have been fundamentally improved, data from the ministry showed.

For instance, the land area suffering from soil erosion in the Loess Plateau in the Yellow River Basin has been reduced by nearly 50 percent, from 450,000 square km in 1990 to 234,200 square km in 2020, the data showed.

After years of unremitting efforts, the serious problem of water and soil erosion in the country has seen improvements, an official with the ministry said, adding that arduous tasks are ahead as the problem of soil erosion still exists in some areas.