Authorities set to conserve the Yellow River

Chinese authorities unveiled on Wednesday an ambitious action plan on conserving the Yellow River, the country's second longest river, vowing to restore 700,000 hectares of degraded natural forest and treat almost 1.4 million hectares of land suffering desertification in its basin by 2025.

The action plan was jointly issued by 12 central government bodies, including the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

Aside from ecological conservation and remediation, water pollution control will also be one of the priorities in the action plan, according to a media release from the ministry on Wednesday.

By 2025, the country will eradicate all water bodies in the basin with a water quality below Grade V, the worst level in the country's five-tier water quality system for surface water. The water quality in middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River will reach Grade II, it said.

According to the ministry, the Yellow River saw water quality of Grade III all though its trunk last year.

The ministry said a special campaign will also be rolled out to beef up environmental protection facilities in the basin's urban areas.

Major focuses in this campaign are to strengthen the wastewater collection network, the disposal of sludge generated from sewage disposal and the treatment of black and odorous water bodies, it added.

It said at least 90 percent of black and odorous water bodies in urban areas of county-level cities in the basin are expected to be eliminated by 2025.