Environmental restoration of Guiyang's Nanming River a huge success

The Nanming River flows through Guiyang city. [Photo/mee.gov.cn] 

The Nanming River, which runs around 50 kilometers through the downtown area of Guiyang city, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, has seen a total revamp over the past few years. It has been transformed from a smelly river to a clean waterway and is a prime example of successful urban river treatment in China. 

Guiyang began the comprehensive water environment management project in November 2012 in response to the worsening environmental conditions in the Nanming River basin. The river's ecological issues were due to rapid industrialization and urbanization, and 4.28 billion yuan ($658.16 million) was invested in improving the water quality of the Nanming River. 

In 2017, the city invested another 7.59 billion yuan to further improve its sewage treatment and purification capacity and its drainage system to clean and divert sewage from the river.

Guiyang has built sewage treatment plants in the old urban area and sewage treatment facilities in new communities. The city has also constructed 65 kilometers of sewage pipe network, which has improved the basin's daily sewage treatment capacity to the current 1.65 million metric tons, up from 990,000 tons in 2017. 

Apart from optimizing the layout of sewage treatment plants, Guiyang adds 1.5 million tons of qualified water from tailraces and 36,000 tons of clean water separated from sewage ditches to the Nanming River basin daily. These measures save trans-regional water diversion of 500 million tons annually, and solve heavy siltation, water blackening and strong odors in the core section of the river. 

Meanwhile, the city has established management platforms and adopted advanced technologies to accurately monitor rivers and important sewage outlets, and achieved refined management in the ecological maintenance of rivers and lakes, aquatic environment protection and water pollution prevention and control. 

Birds fly over the Nanming River. [Photo/mee.gov.cn]

As a result, the water quality of the Nanming River basin has been significantly improved, with 25 black and odorous water bodies in the basin having been cleaned, and the water quality of all seven main tributaries of the river having reached the national standard. 

Mao Zhiwei, director of Guiyang's water affairs administration, said that the concentration of pollutants in the central urban section of the Nanming River has dropped by 11.2 percent on average. Also, the biodiversity index, the coverage of aquatic plants and the integrity of the ecosystem have been increased.

In particular, the coverage rate of submerged plants that have high water-quality requirements has risen to 75 percent from 15 percent in 2012, Mao added.

While adhering to the basin's treatment, Guiyang has promoted the transformation of ecological achievements into development advantages to boost its high-quality growth. 

Since 2017, the city has built some 20 underground sewage treatment plants, above which commercial complexes, parks and stadiums sit. This has avoided the strong odors, loud noise and insufficient protection distance associated with traditional aboveground sewage treatment facilities. The underground plants have also saved 10.9 hectares of construction land and saved 1.5 billion yuan in investments for pipeline network construction and land acquisition, enhancing the comprehensive utilization value of sewage treatment facilities.

For example, in the most densely populated central urban area, commercial buildings covering 13.71 ha, office buildings covering 8.88 ha and sports facilities covering 2.38 ha have been built above two sewage treatment plants, which are located more than 30 meters underground. These facilities have formed an industrial cluster featuring sports and leisure, modern businesses and service industries, and are expected to offer jobs to more than 6,000 people and achieve an output value of 250 million yuan. 

Residents do exercise along the Nanming River in Guiyang city. [Photo/mee.gov.cn]

Guiyang has also worked to highlight the culture of the Nanming River basin. It has connected the ecological resources and cultural landscapes along the Nanming River, such as science education centers, wetland parks, villages and ancient cultural landmarks, to highlight the rich culture along the river and realize the integrated development of culture and natural landscapes in the basin. 

All these changes of the Nanming River have been co-developed and shared by local residents. 

Guiyang has mobilized some 10,000 environmental protection volunteers and residents every year to protect the river and encouraged the public to report environmental issues. Since 2014, the city has also introduced private capital totaling 9.6 billion yuan for the restoration and maintenance of the river basin. 

The city's GDP growth rate has been among the top provincial capital cities for many consecutive years. It has been listed in the Milken Institute's "Best-Performing Cities China" report, which highlights Chinese cities' economic performance at the prefecture-level and above, for four consecutive years. It has also been awarded the title of National Civilized City for three consecutive years.