16% of soil in China could be contaminated: survey

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-04-19

Soil polluted with heavy metals in Baiyin, Gansu, Oct. 16. 2011. (Photo/Xinhua)

Sixteen percent of 6.3 million square kilometers of land surveyed in China was contaminated and 3% of the arable land surveyed was heavily polluted, according to a state investigation released on Thursday.

The investigation, China's first nationwide survey on the pollution of soil, was jointly conducted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land and Resources over a nine-year period.

Wang Shiyuan, deputy minister at the land resources ministry, stated that 16.1%–or over 200,000 square km–of the total surveyed land was polluted and areas that were suffering from the heaviest soil pollution were located in central and eastern China, where economic development has been considerable.

The heavily-polluted areas include the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and old industrial bases in northeastern China, as well as some places in Hunan that contain large amounts of heavy metal.

An official at the enviromental protection ministry, Lin Yusuo, said that the sizeable ratio of contaminated soil could result in serious damage. The polluted farmland would hurt the growth of crops and some pollutants could enter the food chain and pollute agriculture products.

The contaminated soil could also pollute surface water, ground water and the atmosphere.

In 2013, cadmium-tainted rice in Hunan generated a lot of public attention, with many farmers in the Chinese province incurring significant losses as a result.

An investigation has shown that cadmium-related pollution had surged rapidly over the recent years and that the metal had become one of the major soil pollutants in China. Other soil pollutants included mercury, arsenic, copper and lead.