North China's Shanxi province made a new progress in the improvement of air and water quality in 2022, according to the Shanxi Department of Ecology and Environment on Jan 2.

The comprehensive index of ambient air quality in the province was 4.51, which is a year-on-year decrease of 2 percent. The proportion of days with good air quality was 74.4 percent, an increase of 2.3 percentage points year-on-year and 8.7 percentage points over the province's 2017 statistics.

The water quality of sections under national examination reached 84.9 percent, an increase of 15.8 percent year-on-year. This accelerated improvement growth ranks Shanxi first in China.

As for the Fenhe River basin, 57.1 percent of the bodies of water in the basin had excellent water quality, which is an increase of 9.5 percentage points year-on-year.