Ancient Grand Canal given new lease of life

The 40-kilometer-long Beijing section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has been rejuvenated to offer sightseeing tours.

The canal saw two ships full of tourists depart from the Caoyun pier in Tongzhou district in June. That marked the opening of the whole Beijing section after renovation for sightseeing tours.

A comprehensive improvement project of the canal's northern section, mainly flowing through Beijing's Tongzhou district, Xianghe county in Hebei province and Wuqing district in Tianjin, began in late 2018. In Tongzhou, a 28.7-km-long channel was dredged, to widen the river basin and greenways were built on the levees.

More than 7 million cubic meters of silt was dredged out of the river and set onto both the northern and southern banks, which were shaped into picturesque hills beside the canal.

They will be built into Tongzhou's highest hill landscape, an executive of the project said.

Beijing has made efforts to protect and restore important historical river systems and cultural heritage during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), according to an April 12 news conference on the city's management and development planning.

Liu Ronghua, an official from the Beijing Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, said the commission has made the city's waterfront space easier to access and more attractive to tourists.

It also restored and improved watercourses and surrounding landscapes, Liu said.

Tongzhou will also focus on improving lighting for bridge night scenes and the surroundings of the canal to offer residents a new leisure site.

The commission also advocated respect for the natural environment, strengthening energy conservation, the utilization of renewable resources and enhancing the application of science and technology, Liu said.

A new ecological and leisure park in the Shahe area of Future Science City in Beijing's Changping district is set to start construction in the first half of this year. It will apply scientific and technological elements to aid in energy conservation.

The park will install photovoltaic cell film covering an area of 500 square meters, which can produce 70,000 kilowatt-hours electricity annually. It will also collect and purify rainwater to irrigate grassland in the area.

According to an environmental report for 2021, Beijing's air quality and water environment improved. It promoted the water quality of main centralized drinking water sources, such as the Miyun Reservoir.

The city will further reduce carbon emissions in the fields of energy, transportation and construction this year. It will decrease the concentration of fine particulate matter and implement a specific campaign to reduce emissions of oxynitride.

It plans to improve the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei ecological collaborative mechanism to prevent air pollution and protect the water environment in 2022.