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Book Title: Environmental Governance and Sustainability
Editor(s): Martin, Paul; Zhiping, Li; Tianbao, Qin; Du Plessis, Anel; Le Bouthillier, Yves; Williams, Angela
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000472
Section: Chapter 10
Section Title: Drinking Water Security in China: A Critical Justice Issue
Author(s): Jian, Ke
Number of pages: 13
Extract:
10. Drinking water security in China:
a critical justice issue
Ke Jian1
10.1 DRINKING WATER SECURITY IS THREATENED BY
WATER POLLUTION IN CHINA
After more than two decades of two-digit economic growth, the great chal-
lenge facing China now is to break the relationship between fast economic
development and the deterioration of environment. Rapid industrialization and
urbanization has left much of China's water, air, land and other environmental
elements polluted to a dangerous degree.
Because many rivers, lakes and other waters have become polluted with
various types of effluent, water security is threatened by the devastation of
water sources. This is particularly so with drinking water sources, which have
been increasingly threatened by industrial pollution. One of the most crucial
issues both for urban residents and rural farmers in China is to get access to
clean and safe drinking water.
Because most of China's drinking water supply comes from untreated
water sources such as rivers, lakes, pools and underground aquifers, a drink-
ing water crisis is imminent in many parts of China. In 2005, SEPA (the State
Environmental Protection Agency) received reports of 76 pollution incidents
nationwide, many of which took their toll on the water bodies that provide
both rural and urban drinking water (Liu, 2006). China's seven main river
basins, including the Yangtze River basin and Yellow River basin, are cross-
provincial. They cover a total area of 4.37 million square kilometers, amount-
ing to 44% of the total territory of China ...
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ELECD/2012/273.html