Urban Environmental Management in China
Mr. Zhao Hualin, Department of Pollution Control, SEPA, Beijing 100035
I. Introduction
The Chinese government has always considered the cities as key components in environmental protection work. In the past two decades, China has speeded up urbanization. The urban population in China totaled 191.4 million in 1980, a figure which rose to 388.92 million in 1999, accounts for proportion of 19.39% and 30.89% in the total population, respectively. In 1980 China had 223 administratively designated cities, which went up to 663 in 2000. The urbanization level has been increased by 11.5 percentages in the past 20 years. Just like other countries, the issue of environmental pollution has also appeared in the course of China’s urbanization. Therefore the Chinese government has adopted effective measures to environmental pollution control and done its best to improve the quality of the urban environment.
These effective measures could be listed as follows:
Drawing up overall city plans and readjusting the layout of urban functions. In accordance with the Law on City Planning, while working out an overall city plan, the city must include in the plan details of environmental protection, such as protecting and improving the city’s ecological environment, and preventing and controlling pollution and other public hazards. In light of the requirements of the overall planning, many cities, while transforming the old areas and developing new ones, have, in accordance with the city’s function zoning, readjusted the industrial layout, strengthened the prevention and control of industrial pollution, changed the situation in which factories and residents share the same areas, controlled urban environmental pollution caused by production and in people’s daily lives, and constructed a large number of residential quarters with reasonable layout and complete social services.
Strengthening the construction of infrastructure and improving the capability to prevent and control pollution. In 2000, 84.1% of urban residents in China use gas for fuel and heating; the rate of municipal waste water treatment was 34.2%; the green coverage in cities was 28.1% and the area per capita of the green land was 6.8 square meters. The municipal and human wastes in big and medium-sized cities were cleaned away on the day when they were generated.
Comprehensive improvement of the urban environment and improving the quality of the urban environment. Since 1989 the Chinese government has promoted the urban environment comprehensive improvement quantitative examination system (UECIQES) throughout the country. The state and the governments at the provincial level have carried out examinations in 46 key cities and other 560-plus cities. The implementation of this system has enhanced the sense of responsibility of leaders at all levels for urban environmental protection, and such examinations have been included in the governments’ work agendas. Hence a management system and operation mechanism for the comprehensive improvement of the urban environment under the unified leadership of mayors, carried out by different departments according to their respective divisions of responsibility and actively participated in by broad masses of the people have taken initial shape.
Launching the program of creating national environmental model cities and national environmental model districts. Since 1997 the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA is former SEPA) has launched the program of creating national environmental model cities (CNEMC) all over the country. In 1999 the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) initiated the program of creating national environmental model districts within the jurisdiction of 4 municipalities directly under the Central Government, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing. Currently, SEPA awarded 19 national environmental model cities and 2 national environmental model districts, one is the Dagang district located in Tianjin and the other one is the Minhang district located in Shanghai.
Among these effective measures mentioned above, QESUECI and CNEMC have been implemented as the principal instruments for urban environmental management in China.
II. Principal Instruments
(I) Urban Environment Comprehensive Improvement Quantitative Examination System (UECIQES)
1. Definition
UECIQES, the program, is an important target-based means of environmental protection in urban area. It is also an effective measure of promoting the integrated management of urban environmental quality. The system created adheres to urban environmental planning with a set of scientifically designed indicators, and relies on the leadership assumed by the municipal government for its implementation. To successfully implement the system, the municipal government must bring together the participation of various sectors and departments, with the objectives of unifying the social, economic and environmental benefits through quantifiable improvement made in environmental protection, urban infrastructure development and economic progress.
2. Scope of examination
From 1989 to 1991, NEPA has been undertaking UECIQES program of 3 municipalities directly under the Central Government, 26 provincial capitals and 3 other cities like Dalian, Suzhou and Guilin, totaling 32. In 1992, five more cities, such as Chongqing, Ningbo, Xiamen, Qingdao and Shenzhen, were added, with the total number of the cities involving the program reaching 37. In 1996, nine more cities like Qinhuangdao, Yantai, Lianyungang, Nantong, Wenzhou, Shantou, Zhuhai, Zhanjiang, and Beihai, were involved, totaling the 46 cities under the program. At the same time, various provinces and autonomous regions carried out their own UECIQES programs targeting the cities within their jurisdiction, thus increasing more and more cities participating the program year by year, and the total number of the cities went up to 610 in 2000.
3. Means of implementation
UECIQES program is administered by different levels of government. SEPA is responsible for the examination of the municipality directly under the Central Government, provincial capitals, planned individual cities, key tourism cities, coastal open cities and economic special zones, with the total number coming up to 46. The governments of each province, autonomous region and province-level municipality are responsible for the examination of the cities under their administration.
Implementation of UECIQES program could be separated into three phases, namely, preliminary examination, collective examination and panel examination. For those cities subject to examination by the Central Government, they should furnish the result of examination for last year no later than the end of February this year after preliminarily examined by the environmental department of each province, autonomous region and province-level city and submitted to SEPA for examination. Then SEPA will organize a collective examination by bringing together relevant people from the environmental departments both at the province level and at the city level. And a panel examination and on-site sampling survey follow up. The final results of examination will be publicized after examination and approval by SEPA Board of Ministers before the World Environment Day on 5 June every year.
4. Indicators of UECIQES
The series of indicators being currently implemented includes 24 individual indicators, covering the ambient environmental quality, pollution control, environmental infrastructure and environmental management, scoring a total of 100 points. Among them, there are 7 indicators for ambient environmental quality, scoring 30 points, 6 indicators for pollution control, scoring 31 points, 6 indicators for environmental infrastructure, scoring 20 points and 5 indicators for environmental management, scoring 16 points and the working quality of examination scoring 3 points.
The seven indicators for ambient environmental quality include the annual average value per day of TSP, SO2 and NOx, drinking water, surface water quality, average value of noise and traffic noise.
The six indicators for pollution control include smog control coverage, noise control coverage, industrial wastewater treatment, vehicle emission control, industrial solid waste disposal and reutilization and hazardous waste disposal.
The six indicators for environmental infrastructure include the municipal waste treatment, central heat supply, gas use proportion, municipal waste disposal, urban green area coverage and nature reserve coverage.
The five indicators for environmental management include environmental institutional capacity, environmental investment, implementation of the rule of Simultaneous design, construction and operation of new project and its associated environmental facility, collection of pollutant discharging fees and operation of pollution abatement facilities.
(II) Creation of National Environmental Model Cities
1. Purpose
To create environmental model cities is a specific embodiment of the implementation of the urban sustainable development. This program aims to create a group of model cities where the economy, society and environment are well coordinated and of which the environmental quality is good, the urban infrastructure is complete and landscape is clean and beautiful and urban ecology is sound, with the purpose of achieving the sustainable development of the cities. This program has plaid role in guiding the cities towards sustainable development.
2. Indicator cluster
The indicator cluster of environmental model cities includes key factors restraining the sustainable development of the cities, such as economic growth, population growth, resource consumption, environmental situation, environmental management level and coordination between the social and economic development, infrastructure construction and environmental protection. The current indicators employed are divided into five categories and 27 items, including basic conditions, social and economic development, environmental quality, environmental infrastructure and environmental management.
3. Procedure of Implementation
With the principle of voluntary participation, various cities will examine their basic condition and indicators of environmental quality according to the indicators for examining the national environmental model cities, and thereafter they present an application to SEPA. Then SEPA will organize a panel review and field examination and collect comments from various sectors and the public. Based on the panel views and the comments received, SEPA will examine the application. If the qualification of the applying city has been proven to have met the standards, the city will be given the title of “National Environmental Model City”. However, this title is not once for all, SEPA will reexamine the city every three years and sometimes organize sample examination. If the city is found unqualified, deadline will be set for improvement. If the city is found unqualified again after the improvement, the title will be canceled.
4. Cities awarded the title of “National Environmental Model City”
Currently 20 cities have been awarded the title of “National Environmental Model Cities”, such as Zhangjiagang, Dalian, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Zhuhai, Weihai, Zhongshan, Kunshan, Yantai, Laizhou, Rongcheng, Suzhou, Haikou, Shantou, Qingdao, Jiangyin, Wendeng, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Daqing. Two districts have been awarded the title of “National Environmental Model Districts”, such as Dagang district in Tianjin, Minhang district in Shanghai.
III. Progresses
1. The environmental quality has been improved in most of key cities.
The environmental monitoring data shows the atmospheric environmental quality in key cities has been improved without stop or a little bit of fluctuation since 1989. The annual average daily value of TSP in key cities was decreased from 399 ug/m3 in 1989 to 222 ug/m3 in 2000, the figure for SO2 was reduced from 105 ug/m3 to 49 ug/m3, while the figure for NOx was approximately kept within the range of 50~55 ug/m3 in the same period. So is the surface water quality improvement.
2. Local actions at city level to strongly support the sustainable development strategy at national level
The Chinese Central Government has identified the sustainable development as its national strategy to guide its economic and social development since 1992 when the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio Janerio. To this end, the urban sustainable development has been incorporated into the urban environmental management. Especially, the program of creating national environmental model cities shifts the idea of sustainable development into local actions and practices at city level and supports national strategy of sustainable development. The symbols of national environmental model cities should be summarized as follows, the civilized society with stability, the sustainable economic development with potentiality, the clean environment with beautiful landscape, the reasonable resource utilization with benefits, the sound ecology with recycle, the healthy infrastructure with sufficiency, and the comfortable daily life with facilities. Consequently, the title of National Environmental Model Cities could be dubbed as the sustainable development cities in China’s current stage.
3. Environmental aspects are essential in the decision making of environment and development.
The urban environmental improvement has been set as an important responsibility of the municipal government of one city. Hence the municipal governments pay great attention to the environmental improvement by putting the environmental protection on a top agenda of the governing affairs and incorporating it into the responsibility and objective within the terms of the government. The municipal governments also have been making great efforts to coordinate the relationship between economic development, urban sprawl and environmental protection and take integrated measures to address the urban environmental problems. For protecting environment effectively, more and more the municipal environmental departments have been authorized by the government to have the power with the first priority for approving or disapproving any kind of construction projects. Therefore the position of urban environmental protection has been enhanced in the decision making of environment and development, which could return to improve the effectiveness of urban environmental management.
4. Environmental investments soared in recent years
In 2000, the total environmental investment was 106.07 billion yuan, accounts for 1.1% of GDP, 28.8% up over the previous year. Among this, an investment of 56.13 billion yuan was made in the urban environmental infrastructure construction, 17.2% increase over the previous year.
In 2000, the environmental investment in key cities accounted averagely for 2.18% of GDP, went up 0.14% over the previous year. Some key cities for example, like Shanghai and Guangzhou, the environmental investment increased quickly in recent years. Shanghai municipal government invested more than 10 billion yuan per year to environmental protection during the recent 3 years, and the figure will soar environmental investment in Shanghai more than 10 billion yuan. The figure will soar to 12 billion yuan this. The Shanghai municipal government has promulgated a three-year-action on environmental improvement, based on this ambitious environmental program, the environmental investment will increase yearly and keep account for 3% of the municipal GDP, so that more and more people lives in Shanghai will have the right to access clean air and safety drinking water. The similar case is in Guangzhou for environmental investments. In 1999, the environmental investments reached 4.2 billion yuan and accounted for 2.05% of the municipal GDP. The total environmental investments in the Ninth-Five-Year-Plan period (from 1996 to 2000) accumulated more than 20 billion yuan, which exceeds than the figure of accumulating environmental investments in the period starting from the first year of the First-Five-Year-Plan to and ending in the last year of the Eighth-Five-Year-Plan.
IV. Vision
The year of 2001 is the first year to implement the Tenth-Five-Year plan. During the tenth planning period, the urban environmental protection in China has been identified the improvement of urban environmental quality and protection of the public health as basic target, comprehensive capacity strengthening on urban sustainable development as subject, enhancement of urban environment comprehensive improvement as linkage, and employed instrument of scientific & quantitative-based examination, to improve environmental quality obviously for most cities focuses on water and air pollution problems solution.
The specific goals of urban environmental protection are as follows: By the end of 2005, the air quality will meet the second level of national standard in more than 50% of cities at the prefecture level; the surface water quality will achieve the requirements of correspondent national standards by its function zoning in more than 60% of cities at the prefecture level; the noise value both of road and district will meet the national standards in more than 50% cities at the prefecture level; the rate of concentrated sewage treatment will amount to 45% in all cities, and 60% in the cities where population exceeds 50 thousands; the rate of refuse disposition with proper manner will reach 65% in all cities, and upgrade the proportion of refuse disposition with harmless; the rate of residential gas use will go up to 92% in all cities; the green area coverage within the scope of the city proper will amount to 35%, and the area of per capita of the public green land will rise to 8 square meters.