Forest coverage rate rises to 20.5%

Shanxi has continued to invest in efforts to protect its natural environment. In 2003, the province's investment in pollution control was 3.20 billion yuan ($460.97 million), accounting for only 1.30 percent of GDP that year; but investment grew to 52.57 billion yuan in 2016, accounting for 4.03 percent of GDP that year, ranking it first among 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.

Through technological transformation and clean production, the wastewater discharge per unit of GDP (10,000 yuan) dropped from 268.04 tons in 1985 to 10.67 tons in 2016, a decrease of 96.02 percentage points. The amount of industrial solid waste generated per unit of GDP was 2.21 tons in 2016, a decrease of 78.61 percentage points compared with that of 1985. The energy consumption per unit of GDP decreased from 31.36 tons of standard coal in 1978 to 1.49 tons of standard coal in 2016, a drop of 95.25 percentage points.

The province's total sulfur dioxide emissions in 2017 decreased by 10.9 percent compared with that of 2015; nitrogen oxide emissions decreased by 10.4 percent. The average number of days of heavy pollution in 11 cities across Shanxi was 13 days in 2017, down 1.9 percentage points from 2016.

The quality of surface water has also seen improvements. The year of 2017 saw 23 percent of 100 sections monitored fall below Grade V, the lowest level in China's surface water quality standard, representing a 50.1 percentage points decrease compared with 2000, and a 56 percent fall between Grades I-III, representing higher levels of surface water quality –– an improvement of 44.5 percentage points compared with 2000.

As for afforestation, the forest coverage rate in Shanxi has increased from 10.3 percent in 1978 to 20.5 percent in 2017, with forest coverage increasing by 2.396 million hectares. A total of 45 nature reserves covering 11,000 square kilometers have also been established. And the province has even formed a wetland protection network system with 48 new wetland parks.