UN-Habitat praises China's successful experience in urban river pollution control

During the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-4), UN-Habitat and Tongji University jointly released the report "Strengthening River Pollution Control and Realizing Urban Sustainable Development: Experiences of China and Other Developing Countries" on the 12th. Maimouna Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, said at the press conference that China's successful experience in controling polluted rivers provided an example for other developing countries.

Sharif appreciated the Chinese government's efforts to improve the water quality of urban rivers in terms of technology research and development, management and finance, and innovatively implemented the "The River Chief System" to strengthen overall coordination. She said that she hopes that the report can help policymakers in developing countries understand China's experience in river pollution control and attach great importance to sustainable wastewater management and the restoration of heavily polluted rivers.

The report analyzes the challenges faced by developing countries in the governance of polluted rivers, systematically summarizes the technical methods and management systems of river governance, and introduces the comprehensive environmental management of Suzhou Creek in China and related cases of water environmental governance in other developing countries, aiming to promote the implementation of the " 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" and the "New Urban Agenda".

Xu Zuxin, a professor at Tongji University and the lead author of the report, said that the Suzhou Creek was once one of the most polluted river systems in China with dense population and buildings, and the comprehensive governance of Suzhou Creek was also the most complicated project of urban river pollution in the world. Xu Zuxin believes that the success of Suzhou Creek governance is attributed to the great attention of the municipal party committee and government, the orderly coordination of government functional departments, the scientific decision-making by experts, the application of innovative scientific and technological achievements, and extensive public participation.

Suzhou Creek in Shanghai covers an area of 855 square kilometers, involving 12 districts and 2012 small and medium rivers in Shanghai. Since 1990s, Shanghai has successively implemented three phases of comprehensive environmental improvement projects of Suzhou Creek. After 20 years' improvement, the black odor of the main stream of Suzhou Creek has been completely eliminated, the regional water environment quality has been greatly improved, and the water ecology has been restored.