The Huihe Wetland Ecological Tourism Area in Yutai county of Jining, Shandong province [Photo/WeChat account: sdswltwx]

Over the past few years, Shandong has embodied the concept that "green mountains and clear waters are invaluable assets" and improved the ecological environment by taking pollution control as a key task. The province implements an array of green measures such as carbon reduction and afforestation.

In 2022, the PM2.5 concentration in Shandong improved for three consecutive years, with an average annual growth rate of 10.3 percent, and the proportion of national-controlled excellent water bodies exceeded 80 percent for the first time.

As an important storage hub for the eastern route of the south-to-north water diversion project, the Nansi Lake basin covers an area of 31,700 square kilometers, receiving 53 inflowing rivers from four provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan and Anhui. Last year, the proportion of excellent water bodies in the Nansi Lake and Dongping Lake basins reached 100 percent, a milestone for pollution control in key river basins in northern China. 

A scenic area in Qingdao, Shandong province [Photo/WeChat account: sdswltwx]

In Jinan, particle sensors have been installed inside the roof lights of 400 taxis, which can randomly monitor the real-time mobile concentration of air pollutants such as PM2.5 and PM10 on roads. With the support of big data technology, a road particle cloud map is generated per hour, providing technical support for fast tracing and precise treatment and effectively improving the refinement level of atmospheric pollution control.

Xiao Hong, head of the Jinan ecological environment bureau, introduced that the environmental quality of Jinan achieved leapfrog improvement in 2022. The average concentration of PM2.5 in Shandong was 36 micrograms per cubic meter and the proportion of good air quality days reached 73.2 percent.

Located in Wendeng district, Weihai city, Dijia Pharmaceutical Group is a national high-tech enterprise that integrates the research and development, production and sales of chemical raw materials, marine biological materials and intermediates. It is one of the pioneers to implement soil source prevention and control projects in China.

"In 2021, we reinforced the anti-seepage and anticorrosion layers of the production workshop, dangerous chemical warehouse, and hazardous waste storage floor, avoiding soil pollution caused by toxic and harmful substances leaking through infiltration," said Zhao Quanwei, director of environmental protection at Dijia. 

Whether the soil is clean or not is closely related to food safety. The province has continuously worked on three key tasks, namely understanding baseline data, source prevention and land use access, and achieved safe utilization of polluted farmland and vital construction land for two consecutive years. All 16 cities have launched the "zero waste city" construction.

Weishan Lake in Shandong province [Photo/WeChat account: sdswltwx]