In Yalu River Park, a gardener is mowing the lawn.

A sound eco-environment is an important indicator of a region's livability. A sound eco-environment is also the foundation of a national garden city. Dandong has met all the standards for a national garden city.

Indicators require that a national garden city shall not exceed 200 days with the air pollution index higher than 100. Dandong didn't exceed this limit for more than 340 days in this regard. The city's water quality reaches the II category with a quality assessment of "Good". From 2008 to 2010, the monitoring environmental quality for noise in this region remained no higher than 54 decibels, meeting the environmental standard for national garden cities.

The heat island effect of Dandong is extremely small. Heat island effect refers to the phenomenon that urban areas have an obvious higher temperature than surrounding rural areas, which can be lowered with large areas of urban greenbelt landscaping. Dandong's temperature gap between downtown and its suburbs is no more than 3℃. The maximum temperature of heat island effect in Dandong is 0.4℃, showing no signs of this phenomenon. Dandong is rich in indigenous plants. They are planted in the city's streets, squares, residential areas and gardens. The city boasts 136 species of woody plants, including 114 indigenous species.

Each April, the national Yalu river estuary wetland nature reserve, also known as the "paradise of birds", ushers the busiest migrating season for wading birds. Thousands of birds flying across the sky make up a spectacular scene. The Yalu river estuary wetland reserve, which is now the most well preserved coastal wetland reserve, was established in 1987; it's also an important gene pool and the largest migratory bird habitat in the world. Dandong has also set up an administration for the national Yalu river wetland nature reserve.

The Dandong municipal government will continue to build Dandong into a national garden city for the welfare of the local people.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Tania Lee