Jiangsu sings ＂Taihu Lake Beauty＂ of harmonious coexistence of people and water in the new era.
Last year, the algae in Taihu Lake reached the best level since 2007-
Sing the "Taihu Beauty" of Harmonious Symbiosis between People and Water in the New Era
On February 27th, the reporter learned from the new round of news conference on the effectiveness of comprehensive management of Taihu Lake held by the provincial government that in 2023, the water quality and algae situation in Taihu Lake reached the best level since 2007, and it has been safe for 16 consecutive years.
New improvements have been made in water quality.
The provincial party committee and the provincial government regard Taihu Lake governance as a landmark project of ecological civilization construction in Jiangsu, resolutely shoulder the political responsibility of Taihu Lake governance and promote the continuous improvement of water quality in Taihu Lake basin. Last year, our province issued the "Action Plan for Promoting a New Round of Comprehensive Management of Taihu Lake", which detailed and decomposed 100 specific tasks to carry out the work of managing Taihu Lake with greater efforts and higher standards. In 2001, 488 Pacific governance projects were implemented, with an annual investment of 23.8 billion yuan, an increase of about 5 billion yuan over previous years. The provincial finance allocates 2 billion yuan as special guiding funds every year, and issues a total of 34 billion yuan to support about 8,000 projects.
According to the national assessment data, in 2023, the permanganate index and ammonia nitrogen in Taihu Lake remained stable at Class II and Class I, with total phosphorus of 0.052mg/L and total nitrogen of 1.09mg/L, down by 17.5% and 9.9% respectively.
What do these numbers mean? "There are nitrogen and phosphorus indicators in lake eutrophication, in which total phosphorus is the main binding indicator. According to the national standard, the total phosphorus is 0.05mg/L for a good lake. Last year, the total phosphorus in Taihu Lake was 0.052mg/L, which historically approached and returned to a good lake, and relevant indicators should be continuously observed. " Jiang Wei, director of the Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment, explained that last year, the water quality in the eastern lake area of Taihu Lake remained stable at Class III, and the water quality in the central lake area reached Class III for the first time, and the water quality in the western lake area improved greatly. In the first half of the year, the water quality of Taihu Lake reached the good lake standard for the first time, and it can be seen that the water quality of Taihu Lake changed from quantitative to qualitative, but it still takes a long time to achieve fundamental improvement.
Last year, 53 cyanobacteria blooms were found in Taihu Lake, a decrease of 51 times compared with the same period of last year. The average area, maximum area and algae density decreased by 45.7%, 50.8% and 30.3% respectively, and the summer was safe for 16 consecutive years. The proportion of excellent grade III in 206 key sections of the basin was 96.6%, among which the water quality of all river sections reached Grade III and above, and the flux of total phosphorus and total nitrogen into the lake decreased by 2.9% and 25.5% year-on-year. The water quality of 19 lakes and reservoirs in the basin has been continuously improved, and the water quality of Changdang Lake has been upgraded by one grade to reach Class IV.
"Not only physical and chemical indicators, but also biological effects should be observed to further judge the stability and sustainability of Taihu Lake ecosystem." Jiang Wei said that the aquatic biodiversity index of Taihu Lake Basin reached 3.08 last year, which was upgraded from "good" to "excellent". The aquatic vegetation area of the lake reached 200 square kilometers, up 25.8% year-on-year. There are 382 species of birds in the basin, and the national key protected species such as white crane, white-headed crane, black-faced spoonbill and yellow-billed egret have been discovered in recent years.
Continue to strengthen source control and pollution reduction
The problem is in the water, and the root is on the shore. The prominent contradiction of Taihu Lake governance is that the total amount of sewage discharged in the basin exceeds the environmental capacity that Taihu Lake can bear, and controlling sources and reducing pollution is the key measure.
"In 2023, the Taihu Lake Basin added 491,000 tons/day of urban sewage treatment capacity, rebuilt 493 kilometers of urban sewage pipe network, with a total treatment capacity of 9.44 million tons/day, and built a total of 32,000 kilometers of sewage pipe network, handling 2.72 billion tons of sewage throughout the year. We will continue to promote the classified collection and disposal of domestic waste, adding more than 1,600 waste sorting communities and 850 tons/day of kitchen waste treatment capacity. " Chen Haodong, deputy director of the Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said that it will speed up the construction of township sewage pipe network, eliminate the direct discharge of domestic sewage in towns and blank areas of pipe network, and comprehensively improve the urban sewage collection and treatment capacity. This year, it is planned to increase the urban sewage treatment capacity by 400,000 tons/day, and build and renovate the sewage pipe network by 300 kilometers.
Taihu Lake area has been a famous land of fish and rice since ancient times. Our province has implemented the most stringent effluent discharge standard for pond culture in the first and second protected areas of Taihu Lake, and the standardized transformation of aquaculture ponds above 460,000 mu in the basin has been basically completed. At present, the treatment rate of rural domestic sewage in Taihu Lake Basin has increased to 83.8%, which is about 43 percentage points higher than the national average. "In 2023, the five cities in Taihu Lake controlled a total reduction of 412,000 mu of direct seeding rice, and the mechanized returning area of rice and wheat straw in the three cities along the lake was 3.739 million mu, and the returning rate was over 83.3%. The comprehensive utilization rate of crop straw and livestock manure in Taihu Lake Basin reached more than 95%." Sun Xiang, deputy director of the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that this year, we will explore the construction of a monitoring and evaluation system for agricultural green development, increase the pilot project of "two systems" of fertilizers and drugs and ecological transformation of irrigation and drainage systems, and promote the full coverage of key counties of straw comprehensive utilization projects in the upper reaches of Taihu Lake and the full coverage of rice machine transplanting in the first and second protected areas, further improving the level of agricultural green development in Taihu Lake.
"In 2023, the gathering area of cyanobacteria was the least since 2007, and there was no flooding in the whole year for the first time." Yu Junjie, deputy director of the Provincial Water Resources Department, said that a system of "blocking, guiding, controlling and fishing" has been gradually established along the lake. Since 2007, a total of 22.7 million tons of cyanobacteria have been salvaged, of which 740,000 tons were salvaged in 2023. The cyanobacteria salvaged ashore were disposed of by making organic fertilizer, burning and generating electricity, etc., to avoid secondary pollution. "Water, land, air and sky" water quality monitoring and monitoring network has been continuously improved, equipped with 437 water quality automatic stations, 2 ships, 14 boats and 1 observation station, covering more than 60 indicators of automatic monitoring capabilities, which can monitor algae every 30 minutes. In order to further reduce the source pollution in the lake and improve the lake habitat, the new round of ecological dredging project in Taihu Lake has completed 6 million cubic meters of dredging, and it is planned to dredge 6.35 million cubic meters this year.
The background color of river basin development is greener
Governance has forced transformation and upgrading, bringing opportunities for green development. Taoge area of Taihu Lake involves Wujin and Jintan, Changzhou, which is an important catchment area in the upper reaches of Taihu Lake and a necessary area for ecological water replenishment of major rivers entering the lake. In 2022, our province issued the Pilot Implementation Plan for Comprehensive Management and Sustainable Development of Water Environment in Taoge Area of Jiangsu Province (2022-2024).
"The pilot has scheduled 51 major projects in nine aspects, including industrial restructuring and industrial pollution control, urban and rural sewage treatment and garbage disposal, and comprehensive improvement of river networks, with a planned total investment of 18.4 billion yuan. By the end of 2023, 46 projects have been started, with a cumulative investment of about 10 billion yuan." Zhou Jingang, the second-level inspector of the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, said that Changzhou has also vigorously developed strategic emerging industries, continued to promote the high-quality development of new energy industries, and formed an ecological closed loop of "generating, storing and delivering". The new output value of new energy vehicle manufacturing, power batteries and photovoltaic industries contributed more than 90% to the growth of industrial output value, and industrial agglomeration ranked fourth in the country.
At present, there are 462 new "little giant" enterprises in Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou, accounting for nearly 60% of the province’s total. 166 national green factories, 16 green industrial parks and 498 provincial green factories were established. While promoting the continuous transformation and upgrading of the industry, our province has intensified the rectification of phosphorus-related enterprises, and continued to deepen the rectification of phosphorus-related enterprises in the basin in accordance with the principle of "standardizing and upgrading a batch, entering a batch of parks, shutting down and eliminating a batch", and comprehensively establishing a "phosphorus account book" and a "phosphorus list". By the end of 2023, 8,987 enterprises had completed the "one enterprise, one policy" remediation plan, and 6,970 enterprises had completed standardized remediation.
Taihu Lake Basin, with a land area of 0.4%, has created 10% of the national economic aggregate. Last August, the Land Spatial Planning of Jiangsu Province (2021-2035) was officially approved by the State Council. "The plan identified the’ Taihu Hill Ecological Green Center’ as one of the two ecological green centers supporting Jiangsu’s sustainable development. We guide the relevant cities and counties in Taihu Lake Basin to complete the overall planning of land space, strictly protect agriculture and ecological space, and promote the compact layout and intensive and efficient use of land space. " Sun Weidong, deputy director of the Provincial Department of Natural Resources, said that our province strictly controlled the use of land and space, standardized the review of projects involving the occupation of ecological space, and coordinated the ecological protection and restoration, and completed the ecological restoration of about 15,000 mu of abandoned mines left over from history in the water conservation area of Taihu Lake Basin. We will speed up the implementation of five national pilot projects and two provincial demonstration projects for the comprehensive improvement of land and space in the Taihu Lake Basin, and have completed the improvement of 20,000 mu of agricultural land, 0.7 million mu of construction land and 0.5 million mu of ecological protection and restoration. (Reporter Wang Jing)