Capacity building

Trainings: In year 2002, emphasized on the director general position training of the provincial environmental protection bureau (hereinafter referred to as EPB), the education and training of environment protection related people of different level were carried forward, and 8 training sessions were conducted with 64 provincial, 278 prefectural directors general of EPB were trained. A special director general position training session was carried out, and 71 persons were trained. 7 training sessions for the environment supervision were carried out and 657 persons were trained, 16 environment impact assessment training sessions were conducted and 1912 person were trained. Instruct the provincial and prefectural EPBs conducted 28 directors general position training sessions, and 1487 director general of county level were trained.

From year 1998 to 2002, 123 director general position training sessions were conducted at different level, 5409 persons were trained. 23 training sessions for the environment supervision were carried out and 2662 persons were trained. From Year 1999 to 2002, 48 environment impact assessment training sessions were conducted and 8000 persons were trained.

Early-Warning Mechanism for Key Environmental Problems: The State Environmental Protection Administration established a quarterly reporting system for the water pollution situation of key river basins and marine areas, and an early-warning mechanism for key environmental problems. In cooperation with the Ministry of Water Conservancy, SEPA also established a reporting system for water quantity and quality and a conference system for key water issues.

Water Sanitation and Latrine Improvement in Rural Areas: In 2003, 11.84 million more rural people were provided with centralized drinking water supply, and 5.62 million sanitation toilets were newly built. Among the 943 million rural population in the country (not including Tibet), 92.71% (which was 1.04% higher than the previous year) were beneficiaries of the water sanitation improvement. By the end of 2003, 50.92% of the 248.79 million households had had sanitation toilets or latrines, which was 2.26% higher than the previous year.

In 2003, the total water supply for cities was 48.4 billion m³, which was 3.8% more than the previous year. The water consumption by production and operations was 20.9 billion m³, which was 43.2% of total water supply and was approximately the same as the previous year. The water consumption by public services was 6.8 billion m³, which was 14% of total water supply. The water consumption by households was 16.4 billion m³, which was 33.9% of the total water supply as opposed to the 32.3% of 2002. The urban population for water consumption was 295.12 million. The water use popularization rate in cities was 86.3%, which was 9 percentage points higher than the previous year. The amount of per capita water use for living purposes was 215 liters, which was 2 liters more than the previous year. In 2003, the cities saved 3.5 billion m³ of water. The recycled or reused water by industries was 45.9 billion m³.

Progress Was Made in Cracking down Enterprises that Discharge Pollution Illegally: Between June and September, The State Environmental Protection Administration, the State Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Supervisions, the State Business Administration, the Ministry of Justice, and the National Bureau for the Supervision of Safe Production jointly launched a large-scale environmental campaign to crack down enterprises that discharged pollution illegally. 496,000 environmental law enforcement personnel/times participated in the campaign. 201,000 enterprises were inspected. 21,000 enterprises illegal cases were discovered. 7,339 enterprises were shut down. 2,079 enterprises were ordered to stop their production lines, and 1,094 enterprises were ordered to treat pollution within prescribed periods. Among these, the State Environmental Protection Administration handled more than 40 representative cases that violated environmental laws, and publicized the investigationresults of 26 typical cases. A number of environmental problems with which the public were keenly concerned were solved, which contributed significantly to pollution control in the country.

Notes: Data of Hongkong, Macao and Taiwan are not included in the material mentioned above.