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City short on clean water sources
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POLLUTION in Shanghai’s rivers and creeks has left the city facing a severe shortage of clean water, according to a Tongji University survey released yesterday.
About half the city’s surface water was heavily polluted or below grade 5, the worst of five quality levels, last year while only 25 percent came up to grade 3 level, or suitable for domestic use, the survey found.
About 16 percent of water was grade 4 and the remaining 9 percent was grade 5.
China uses a water quality ranking system of 1 to 5.
Grade 1 is excellent, requiring only simple treatment; grade 2 means slightly polluted but drinkable with treatment; grade 3 is for swimming pools and fish farming; grade 4 is undrinkable and can be used only for industrial purposes and artificial scenery without human contact; while grade 5 water is for agriculture.
Most of the rivers are unable to purify themselves so the water quality will only get worse, the university said.
Shanghai has 25,000 kilometers of river and about 528 square kilometers of lakes.
Downstream Suzhou Creek and some small creeks in suburban areas were the worst polluted, the poll said.
The mouth of the Yangtze River, site of Qingcaosha Reservoir, has the best quality water at grade 2.
About 70 percent of the city’s population gets its tap water from the Yangtze, which is purified at the reservoir. The Huangpu is mainly used as a reserve water resource.
A government report earlier this month was not optimistic about China’s water quality. It said about a quarter of 60 lakes and reservoirs monitored had high amounts of algae.
The university study also found that the city’s soil was heavily polluted due to industrial activity last century.
However, it said that air quality had improved in recent years with more blue sky days.
PM2.5, the tiny particles hazardous to health, remained the main culprit behind the city’s air pollution, it said.
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