At a press conference held by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on March 26, Jiang Huahua, director of the Ministry's Ecological Environment Monitoring Department, introduced that China has established the world's largest ecological environment quality monitoring network, covering atmospheric, surface water, groundwater, soil, noise, ocean, and ecological elements. This network boasts a reasonable layout and complete functions, and is able to use real, accurate, and comprehensive monitoring data to tell the story of a beautiful China where each is beautiful in its own way, and together they are even more beautiful.

Improving the Integrated Sky-Land-Sea Monitoring Network

The construction of a modernized monitoring system is a systematic project. Among them, improving the integrated sky-land-sea monitoring network is the most fundamental and primary task. 'The monitoring stations deployed around the people are like pairs of 'eyes,' capturing the beauty around them, sensing changes in environmental quality, and discovering prominent environmental problems around the clock,' said Jiang Huahua.

Since 2024, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has, in accordance with the requirements of integrated sky-land-sea monitoring, proactively planned the layout of national monitoring networks for environmental air, surface water, groundwater, and oceans during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, a more scientific, efficient, and integrated network will better support the construction of a beautiful China and more comprehensively reflect the quality of the ecological environment. In terms of air, air quality monitoring points will be added in newly built urban areas to ensure that air monitoring covers wherever urban development reaches; in terms of surface water, surface water monitoring sections will be added in source areas such as the Sanjiangyuan region to take a 'full-body photo' of major rivers from their source to their estuary, and the monitoring and evaluation of aquatic biological indicators will be comprehensively deployed to more comprehensively reflect the water environment and water ecology; in terms of oceans, ocean monitoring points will be added in beautiful bay units and the South China Sea region to better meet the new requirements of marine ecological environmental protection.

Providing stronger support for precise and scientific pollution control. 'The premise of precise and scientific pollution control is to scientifically distinguish the impact of natural factors and human activities on ecological environmental quality, and to focus attention on environmental pollution caused by human activities,' said Jiang Huahua. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the layout and standardized monitoring and evaluation methods will be optimized for some sections that are greatly affected by natural background factors and have little surrounding human activity. For example, a large number of wintering birds have been roosting in Poyang Lake's Nanjishan in recent years, and bird droppings have led to an increase in total phosphorus concentration, which is a typical example of the impact of natural factors on environmental quality. Focusing more on environmental issues around the people. 'While doing a good job in monitoring the water quality of major rivers, we pay more attention to extending to small and medium-sized water bodies around the people,' said Jiang Huahua. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, more than 170 tributaries and small rivers around the people will be added for monitoring, making the monitoring data more tangible and accessible to the public. In terms of groundwater, a problem-oriented approach will be adopted, focusing on strengthening monitoring around 'one zone and two fields,' namely chemical industrial parks, landfills, and hazardous waste disposal sites.

A preliminary framework of an ecological quality monitoring network of 'integrated ecological quality monitoring stations + sample plots' has been established.

For a long time, compared with the relatively complete environmental quality monitoring network, the construction of the ecological quality monitoring network has been in the exploratory stage, which is a shortcoming and weakness of ecological environmental monitoring.

Jiang Huahua introduced that since the 14th Five-Year Plan, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has issued the 'Regional Ecological Quality Evaluation Method (Trial)', and jointly with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, formulated and implemented the 'National Ecological Quality Supervision and Monitoring Work Plan (2023-2025)', pushing the construction of China's ecological quality monitoring network to accelerate. A preliminary framework of an ecological quality monitoring network of 'integrated ecological quality monitoring stations + sample plots' has been established. Integrated monitoring stations play a 'control' role in the national ecological quality supervision, monitoring, and evaluation work, protecting areas with the best originality and integrity of the ecosystem.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment has strengthened cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, relevant universities and research institutes, and has conducted two rounds of selection to establish 171 integrated ecological quality monitoring stations. 'The third round of selection is currently underway, and it is expected that the number of national ecological quality comprehensive stations will reach about 200,' said Jiang Huahua. This will cover all 31 provinces and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, as well as key areas for ecological protection and supervision, national key ecological function areas, and national parks.

Jiang Huahua introduced that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has used a grid method to set up a total of 16,400 sample plots nationwide, covering eight major ecosystem types: forests, grasslands, wetlands, deserts, urban and rural areas, farmland, water bodies, and oceans, basically achieving full coverage of county-level administrative units. Ecological quality monitoring sample plots use biodiversity as the main monitoring object and are a 'barometer' reflecting the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation. Jiang Huahua stated that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will expedite the completion of the third batch of comprehensive station applications and selections, basically completing the national ecological quality monitoring network consisting of more than 200 comprehensive stations and 16,400 monitoring sample plots, making ecological protection and restoration 'visible in its effects' and achieving 'seeing a beautiful China here'.

Promoting the Digital Transformation of Ecological Environment Monitoring

Ecological environment monitoring has high technological content and abundant data resources, and has an urgent business need for artificial intelligence applications, and can also provide a broad application scenario for the deployment and implementation of artificial intelligence,' Jiang Huahua introduced. In terms of air and surface water monitoring, through the digital transformation of national control sites, automatic monitoring has achieved 'unmanned operation and maintenance,' reducing the frequency of on-site operation and maintenance and the time spent on single operation and maintenance by more than 70%; manual monitoring has achieved 'intelligent sampling + intelligent analysis.' In sampling, unmanned aerial vehicles are used for unmanned sampling, and in analysis, regional fully automated unmanned 'dark light laboratories' are built to undertake water quality sample analysis tasks, saving more than 50% on sampling time, personnel input, and transportation costs.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other departments recently jointly issued an opinion proposing to develop a batch of environmental protection robots and remote operation and maintenance equipment around environmental monitoring and other fields, and to accelerate the promotion and application of advanced technologies such as virtual reality and digital twins. 'We will actively promote the application of new technologies in ecological environment monitoring to protect the green mountains and clear waters of our motherland with even more intelligent ecological environment monitoring,' said Jiang Huahua. Satellite remote sensing has unique and significant advantages in large-scale, long-distance, non-contact ecological environment monitoring. In recent years, especially since the 14th Five-Year Plan, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment's satellite remote sensing monitoring capabilities have been significantly enhanced. Currently, it has a total of seven in-orbit satellites in two series, environment and atmosphere, and has initially built a multi-satellite collaborative short-cycle, high-coverage, high-resolution ecological environment satellite remote sensing monitoring system.

Jiang Huahua said that remote sensing methods represented by satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles will play an increasingly important role in ecological environmental protection. Next, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will comprehensively improve satellite remote sensing monitoring capabilities, further give full play to the unique advantages of remote sensing technology, and actively explore the collaborative application with large artificial intelligence models, making the 'sky eye' of satellite remote sensing clearer and its vision broader, contributing to the construction of a beautiful China. (Kou Jiangze)

Source: People's Daily