Wuhu Deepens its Battle to Protect Clear Waters

  On September 23rd, the Municipal Ecological Environment Bureau held a press conference to announce the city's progress in its efforts to protect clear waters.

  Since the 14th Five-Year Plan, the water quality of the Yangtze River mainstream in Wuhu has remained consistently Class II, with 100% of the 37 national, provincial, and municipally controlled sections achieving excellent water quality. All 10 centralized drinking water sources at the county level and above have met water quality standards. Urban black and odorous water bodies have fully entered the "long-term control and long-term cleanliness" phase, and water quality in the main urban area has continued to improve. The ten-year fishing ban has yielded significant results, with aquatic biodiversity in the Yangtze River showing positive signs of recovery, and frequent sightings of finless porpoises. This has enabled Wuhu to achieve both high-quality ecological and high-quality development.

  We are striving to steadily improve the quality of the water ecosystem. We have issued the "Wuhu City 14th Five-Year Plan for Water Ecological Environment Protection," formulated the "Wuhu City Surface Water Control Section Water Quality Target Assessment Measures" and the "Wuhu City Surface Water Environment Quality Monitoring and Early Warning Measures," established and improved an ecological compensation mechanism for the Yangtze River mainstream and its first- and second-level important tributaries, comprehensively promoted the protection and restoration of key water ecological basins, and meticulously enhanced water environment quality supervision. Monthly monitoring is conducted on 22 lakes and 88 water systems within the main urban area, and a water environment monitoring database has been established. The water quality of the main urban area continues to improve.

  We are continuously fighting the battle to control urban black and odorous water bodies. Currently, 74 black and odorous water bodies in the urban built-up areas have fully entered the "long-term control and long-term cleanup" stage, and 7 black and odorous water bodies in counties (cities) have achieved "initial results." Six new sewage treatment plants were built and expanded, increasing the urban sewage treatment capacity to 900,000 tons/day. 235 kilometers of sewage pipelines were newly constructed and renovated, and 495 older residential communities completed rainwater and sewage separation, eliminating 25 square kilometers of unused domestic sewage pipelines and 62 direct domestic sewage outlets. The Wuhu Jiangdong Water Ecological Park - Recycled Water Reuse Demonstration Project and the Zhujiaqiao Tailwater Purification Ecological Park Phase II were completed, increasing the recycled water utilization capacity to 120,000 tons/day. Furthermore, the "plant-network integrated" operation and maintenance model of our city's sewage system was included by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in its "2023 Work Experience in the Treatment of Urban Black and Odorless Water Bodies and the Construction of a Long-term Mechanism for Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Domestic Wastewater Treatment" for nationwide promotion.

  Strengthening and improving drinking water safety. Currently, the city has 23 centralized drinking water sources, including 10 at the county level and above and 13 at the township level and below. Drinking water source protection areas are being demarcated in accordance with the law, and standardized construction of drinking water sources is being strengthened. For drinking water sources at the county level and above, five new automatic water quality monitoring microstations were built, five relocated stations were used, and eight existing stations were utilized, achieving full coverage of automatic water quality monitoring. At the same time, efforts were made to integrate urban and rural water supply, consolidating a total of 85 township (rural) drinking water sources.

  We have furthered efforts to improve the rural water environment, completing the domestic sewage treatment tasks for 364 administrative villages, bringing the rural domestic sewage treatment rate to 56%, achieving the 14th Five-Year Plan target one year ahead of schedule. We have also completed the treatment of 88 rural black and odorous water bodies, bringing the rural black and odorous water body treatment rate to 97.8%.

  We have systematically strengthened coordinated efforts to address waterfront pollution, completing health assessments for all lakes on the provincial lake protection list and 22 municipal rivers, and establishing river and lake health records. We have also compiled "one-outlet-one-policy" remediation plans for 1,533 sewage outlets on the Yangtze River mainstream and 338 outlets into its first and second-level tributaries, achieving a completion rate of over 90%. We have also completed key water pollutant emission reduction projects. Since the 14th Five-Year Plan, we have applied for nine emission reduction projects, reducing chemical oxygen demand by 12,008.8 tons and ammonia nitrogen by 366.06 tons, completing the 14th Five-Year Plan goals one year ahead of schedule. We are comprehensively promoting the protection and development of beautiful rivers and lakes, and promoting the establishment of a comprehensive, integrated ecological and environmental governance system for the Yangtze River mainstream and its major tributaries. In June 2025, the results and lessons learned from the Yangtze River (Wuhu section) governance were recommended by the Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment for inclusion in the fourth batch of outstanding national beautiful river and lake cases.

Translated by Wang Yafang from Jinning Foreign Affairs Services of Anhui Province Co.,Ltd