Shanxi works to improve environment

Shanxi province has made remarkable progress in improving its natural environment since the beginning of this year.

The province has strengthened the coordinated control of multiple pollutants and regional pollution and carried out special actions to reduce ozone during the summer and comprehensive treatment of air pollution in the autumn. Efforts have been made to coordinate water resources, the water environment, and water ecology management, strengthen soil pollution risk control, and enhance the comprehensive treatment of solid waste and new pollutants. The development of "zero waste city" in Taiyuan and Jincheng has been promoted.

It has implemented major water conservancy and environmental management projects to comprehensively improve the water environment of the Yellow River basin. So far, 158 related projects have been launched, with 35 projects completed. 

The province has also applied for three national-level major ecological protection and restoration projects, including the integrated mountain-water-forest-farmland-grassland-sandy land protection and restoration project of the west foot of Lyuliang Mountain and the ecological restoration of abandoned mining areas in Linfen city and Lingqiu county. 

In the first half of this year, the average comprehensive air quality index in the province was 4.70. The improvement in air quality ranked at the forefront of the nation and ranked first in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas. The proportion of good surface water bodies in the national assessment section in the province reached 86.2 percent, an increase of 8.8 percentage points compared to the first half of 2022.