Focus on Arts and Ecology

The initial phase of China’s national soil environmental monitoring network has been completed, according to Liu Zhiquan, head of the Monitoring Department at the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). He told thepaper that MEP has been carrying out detailed investigations into the status of soil pollution in cooperation with other ministries since 2017.

Nearly 80,000 state-controlled soil monitoring stations have been set up at over 2,000 sites across the country, in both urban and rural areas. A further 16,393 soil monitoring stations have been set by enterprises. Liu said that a detailed investigation of the state of soil, especially in agricultural areas and around key industrial clusters, will be completed by the end of 2020.