River managers have been appointed to take care of each river in Hanggin Banner, Ordos, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, since the river management system was fully put into practice earlier this year.

The river management system was proposed by the central government in 2016 in the context of deteriorating water quality in some areas and destruction of aquatic ecosystems.

The river managers are tasked with resource protection, pollution prevention and control, and environmental restoration. Their performance will be assessed and they will be held accountable for environmental damage to bodies of water under their supervision.

There are 73 rivers and 14 lakes in Hanggin Banner, with total usable water of 290 million cubic meters. More than 100 river managers have been appointed to supervise rivers in the banner.

As the river manager of Xiaonan River in Dulatala town, Hanggin Banner, Wang Xiong, also the deputy mayor of the town, inspects the river twice each day, and makes daily notes about the river.

Han Jing, a river manager in charge of a reach of the Yellow River in Nur village, Hanggin Banner, said that he became concerned about the water quality once he was appointed the river manager. 

China has now appointed around 200,000 river managers at the provincial, city, county and town-level to combat pollution, according to the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR).

The impact is becoming clear. Some 73.4 percent of inland waters met national standards in 2016, up from 70.8 percent in 2015 and 67.5 percent in 2014, fulfilling the yearly target.