The State Oceanic Administration (SOA) warned the country's major
coastal cities on Friday that the marine environment is
deteriorating.
According to its 2001 Bulletin on China's Marine Environment, the
country's heavily polluted sea area rose by 4,000 square kilometres
to a total of 32,590 square kilometres last year, though the
country's total area of polluted sea waters decreased.
By
the end of last year, China had altogether 173,390 square
kilometres of coastal seas suffering from varying degrees of
pollution, 33,000 square metres less than in the previous year.
"The heaviest pollution is found in the offshore waters of populous
cities and advanced industrial centres, like Tianjin and Shanghai,
and there is no sign of abatement so far," said SOA spokesman Wang
Fei.
Inorganic nitrogen and phosphates, contained in great quantities in
industrial waste water and sewage, remain major threats.
Sea water pollution is traditionally divided into four categories:
the first level, termed "normal," supports marine life; the second
level, "lightly polluted," can still meet the requirements of
marine aquaculture; the third, "considerably polluted," is not
suitable for fishing or aquaculture; and the fourth, "heavily
polluted," will support neither marine life or human
activities.
However, Wang said there was no reason to panic, because
investigations by the administration indicate no evidence of
obvious negative impacts on bathing beaches and marine
aquaculture.
Meanwhile, the administration revealed that marine disasters,
mainly storm tides, red tides, excessive wave action, and severe
ice build-up, cost the country a total of 10.01 billion yuan
(US$1.2 billion) last year and claimed 401 lives.
Among these disasters, "red tides," a proliferation of algae
damaging fishing and the aquaculture industry by suffocating fish
populations, has increased at an alarming speed, said Xu Sheng,
deputy director of the administration's environmental protection
division.
According to Xu, red tides hit China 77 times last year, 49 times
more than that in 2000, involving a sea area of around 15,000
square kilometres and costing the country 1 billion yuan (US$120.8
million) in economic losses.
"We set up an overall supervision system on red tides last year,
and we hope our closer watch this year will help in issuing
warnings in order to avoid heavy losses," said Xu.
(China
Daily April 1, 2002)