“All you and your glory will perish one day, but the rivers will flow on forever.” – Tang Dynasty Poet
Introduction
China has recently emerged as a leading world power both in the competitive market and in international politics. Boasting a current population of over 1,300,000 people, it is the most populated country on earth.1 A technological and global business leader, the future of China’s power on the world stage continues to look promising as new models of production develop and international trade boundaries are lifted. However, China’s success as a “developed” nation has exacted a high price on its natural resources and environment. This has resulted in such immense pollution that China is currently the home of 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities.2 This cost increasingly affects millions of citizens, both in urban and rural areas, and continues to greatly influence the health of Chinese citizens. Perhaps at an even greater cost to the leaders of China than human welfare problems, the continuing degradation of natural resources is also causing a painful dent in China’s burgeoning economy, which will only increase as the nation continues to assert itself forcefully in the world market without concern for environmental health.
There are many environmental problems in China which exist as testaments to the consequences of the nation’s rapid race to achieve economic progress in the last three decades. A severe scarcity of available water has emerged as a result of overwhelming demand, overuse, inefficiencies, and unequal distribution. Despite having the fourth-largest source of fresh water in the world, this overuse has caused “two-thirds of China’s cities to suffer from minor or severe water shortages.”3 The constant pollution of China’s air has also become steadily worse as industries have developed through the use of coal as a cheap and favorite energy source. This use has greatly assisted in polluting China’s atmosphere, so much that as much as 90 percent of China’s sulfur dioxide emissions and 50 percent of its particulate emissions are the direct result of coal use. This has led to China recently overtaking the United States as the largest producer of greenhouse gases, which have been scientifically proven to increase global warming and deterioration of the ozone layer. Another major environmental crisis facing China is the overwhelming desertification of its terrain. This desertification has occurred as large areas of China’s forests are pillaged for industrial use, subsequently causing severe soil erosion. This erosion has resulted in one quarter of the country being transformed into desert, with the Gobi Desert spreading about 1,900 miles annually.4
However, the most devastating act in China’s environmental tragedy is the severe contamination and pollution of its rivers, which provide water, and therefore life, to millions of citizens. In 2003 China’s State Environmental Agency (SEPA), which was created as a full ministry in the Chinese government in 1998, reported extremely high pollution levels in China’s waters. The report found that “more than 70 percent of the water in five of the seven major river systems was deemed unsuitable for human use.”5 Despite this alarming statistic, the millions of citizens that depend on river water for survival have no choice but to drink the only water that is available to them, despite the many pollutants that are present.
Although many factors have contributed to this degradation over the past century, increased development and subsequent industrialism in the wake of China’s quest for economic power have greatly impacted the sustainability of China’s water. This impact has been furthered by the central government’s neglect in regard to environmental conservation and the consequential lack of regulation and policy. Furthermore, the fragmented relationships between state and local governments have resulted in a lack of implementation of existing environmental protection laws. This fragmentation has pervaded the symbiotic relationship that exists between industry and government, where environmental regulations are often neglected under the pressure to industrialize and increase production. As shown, much of China’s water sources are perhaps irreversibly polluted. This paper will focus on the recent deterioration of the Yangtze River, and the great health consequences facing Chinese citizens resulting from a combination of political inaction and burgeoning industrial development. My paper will center mainly on rural statistics and the less easily treated, although no less significant, health effects that river pollution have on these people because of the drastic differences not only in income, but in health and sanitary access.6
Political and Economic History: The Foundation
The current water crisis in China is not a recent phenomenon, but is built upon a strong foundation of economic progress and correlating environmental neglect and overuse. It is therefore impossible to provide a thorough analysis of the nation’s current situation without first briefly examining previous economic programs and political attitudes over the past five decades, and to acknowledge the impact of these policies on both China’s political and economic climate, as well as over its regulation and concern over ecological issues.
Although Chinese citizens have long redirected the power of water to increase economic gain, the modern roots of the current situation can be traced back to the autocratic socialist regime under Communist leader Mao Zedong in the mid 20th century.7 As explained by Elizabeth Economy in her book, The River Runs Black, it was in the aftermath of World War II that China began to seriously recognize the importance of becoming a competitive power in the international market. Consequently, “Mao’s vision of China as a great power brought about a renewed cycle of population growth, accelerated indiscriminate mobilization of resources in preparation for war, and grand schemes for economic development.”8 In an effort to expedite his economic plans, Mao established the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961), an economic program designed to propel China into the industrial age.
The program, which centered on increased industrial and agriculture production through a method of collectivization and state-run businesses, was not unlike Joseph Stalin’s Five-Year-Plan, which Stalin had enacted in Russia and Ukraine during the previous two decades. Rather than creating and stabilizing a productive economy, however, Stalin’s program resulted in widespread famine, severe economic hardship, and the deliberate murder of millions of Ukrainian and Russian citizens due to forced labor and starvation.9
The Great Leap Forward did result in increased industry – with adjoining environmental damage, for much of China’s forests were “cut down to fuel smelting foundries, contributing to unprecedented erosion, pollution, and flooding.”10 Similar degradation affected China’s rivers, as waterways were either diverted through damming projects or polluted by the surge in the development of industry, with the number of factories increasing from “170,000 in 1957 to 310,000 in 1959.”11 These factories contributed to the current pollution that stems from the many unregulated – and largely environmentally unsafe – industries that exist today on the banks of China’s rivers.
Unfortunately, the death toll exacted by the Great Leap Forward also resembled that under Stalin’s regime: an estimated 35-50 million people died due to starvation and political oppression between 1959 and 1961. Within one year, China’s population shrank by 10 million people.”12
After the Great Leap Forward, Mao devised a second process of ‘economic revolution’ called the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). This second program lasted until Mao’s death, and represented a renewed attempt by the government to return to reform and gain economic stability. However, this attempt, while dramatically changing daily life of Chinese citizens, did not reform the role of the environment in political change. Industrialism continued to be a top priority.
Following the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong’s death, the central government began, in the early 1980’s, to transfer authority from large state-owned enterprises, or SOEs, to provincial governments. Economic power was therefore reconcentrated from the state to local governments, called town-village enterprises, or TVEs. By 2000, they grew to “20 million TVEs with an estimated 128 million employees responsible for 30.4 percent of China’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, and 34 percent of rural income.”13 The effects of these TVEs helped contribute to China’s great economic success and enabled it to take its place as an economic leader through the implementation of cheap, efficient modes of development. This transformation also aided China’s transition as an international leader, as Western nations opened up trade and production in the face of increased global development and production began to shift to Chinese shores. International Governmental Organizations (IGOs) helped contribute to this progress, as organizations like the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund aided in development of infrastructure and other economic goals.
However, as much as this economic progress has helped many Chinese citizens and built up a stable national infrastructure, the environmental harm that this same success has wrought also pushed China back in many ways. The continued neglect of China’s water sources in exchange for economic success is more harmful than beneficial, and more archaic then advanced. If a nation cannot adequately provide the majority of its people with adequate clean water, then what future can it have? Unfortunately, there exist many political and industrial influences which continually undermine any potential future.
Industrial Causes
As China’s economy has grown, so has the importance of industry. However, the consequences of the tension between local and state governments and businesses have resulted in unregulated production with no mind for environmental sustainability and health.
For example, the same TVEs previously mentioned, which benefit the economy and play vital roles to local communities, were also responsible for 20 percent of all pollutants nationally by 2000.14 While this percentage may not seem important, one must remember that the amount of overall pollution emitted into the environment comes from car exhaust, landfills, and human and agriculture waste. Therefore, the fact that as much as 20 percent of pollution derives solely from local and community-run villages supported by the government makes the above percentage much more significant.
Furthermore, these TVEs include many businesses and industries, whose methods of production are extremely harmful to the ecological balance of the river waters. Such industries include “paper and pulp milling, chemical manufacturing, metal casting, and brick making….”15 Unfortunately, these industries also happen to be some of the largest sources of the dangerous chemical wastes that have been found in river sources. These chemicals include high concentrations of “nitrogen, phosphates, phenols, lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury.”16 These chemicals often find their way into waterways because of the proximity of the enterprises to river banks, as well as due to the improper management and storage of these chemicals.
The use of chemicals and pesticides has also increased due to the emergence of agriculture-related businesses and other industries along the banks of water sources. China’s use of chemical fertilizers more than quadrupled during the reform period, from 8,840,000 tons in 1978 to 42,538,000 tons in 2001.17 These fertilizers, besides sinking into the soil and affecting groundwater reservoirs, also run off into local rivers and are pushed downstream into neighboring villages and communities. Unfortunately, a large number of these plants are built along rivers and other water sources. For example:
“…of 7555 chemical and petrochemical projects surveyed, 1354 were located on the banks and shores of rivers, lakes and reservoirs; 2489 were adjacent to cities or areas with high population concentrations; 535 were on major tributaries of key rivers; and 280 were on the upper reaches of drinking water source protection regions.”18
While these industries are often beneficial as a source of labor for the surrounding community, the hazards posed by their proximity can often outweigh the benefits, as dangerous chemicals and other industrial wastes pour directly into surrounding waterways and agriculture areas.19
Aside from chemical and pesticide industries, the existence and maintenance of wastewater facilities contribute greatly to the health of China’s rivers, as much of the sewage in the water results directly from human and animal waste.20 Unfortunately, the major recipient of wastewater often becomes China’s rivers, which are large and often located close to industrial sectors. These contributing factors make it easier for waste to be either illegally dumped directly into a water source or to seep in, unnoticed and unregulated, through faulty pipes and inadequate storage facilities. However, the main cause behind waste contamination results from improper treatment of wastewater by designated facilities. This lack of treatment is due to a lack of sufficient number of wastewater treatment plants, as well as a lack of proper regulation of treatment procedure to ensure that the water flowing into the river reaches a designated level of sanitation.
For example, a survey conducted in 2005 of two hundred cities revealed that “only 23 percent of factories properly treated sewage before disposing it” directly into river sources and other waterways.21 The comparison of the 2005 survey to a similar study conducted in 1996 demonstrates the extraordinary lack of progress made in the past decade to regulate the mismanagement of wastewater pollution. This survey reported that “only 5 percent of municipal wastewater and 17 percent of industrial discharge received any treatment before being dumped into lakes, rivers, irrigation ditches, and coastal waters.”22 Therefore, while a small percentage of increase does exist between the two studies, it is minuscule in comparison to the progress that could have been made if treatment facilities were properly regulated by the government and thorough environmental laws were implemented.
Unfortunately, any future progression of these percentages seems to become increasingly improbable, as population growth and urban development rises and increases the amount of wastewater generated and requiring treatment. Recent wastewater reports indicated “an increase of 1.5 percent” in the amount of industrial and municipal wastewater during 2002-2003, with combined industrial and municipal wastewater amounts “increasing by 4.7 percent.”23 While these percentages may seem low, the impact that a simple one percent increase can have on an already overburdened and underacknowledged system is devastating to the lives that depend on already contaminated waters. Although recent efforts have been put into place to increase water treatment facilities, the number of facilities is still inadequate to the amount of water needing to be purified. In 1999, China had 266 modern wastewater treatment plants with capacity accounting for 14.7 percent of the total 20.4 billion tons of domestic sewage.24 The first move was made to change the results of this report in 2000, when “the central government ordered all cities of more than 500,000 people to treat at least 60 percent of their wastewater.”25 However, the result of this effort is currently unclear, as pollution levels outpace the time for facilities to be installed.
The impact of chemical and industrial waste, as well as human and animal sewage on local rivers, has been a mounting problem since industrialization and continues to increase along with urban development and industry in the rising economy. This influx of chemicals and waste into commonly used waterways is more than a reflection of the importance of economic gain over environmental health and water sanitation. It is a telling portrait of the lack of governmental power over their own industries, which details the fragmentation between local governments and private and national industries. So long as this lack of acknowledgment and improper regulation continues, so also will the degradation of China’s once flowing waters, and the lasting health effects that follow in the wake of this tide.
The Effects: Health and the Environment
The health effects caused by the pollution of China’s rivers through industrial and human wastes are paramount. It is easy to think of these wastes as being “disposed of.” It is harder to realize the reality of this term: to realize that a million people have no choice but to drink and live off the source where billions of tons of waste are “disposed” into. The visible health effects endured by the river communities which survive on this water stand as a true testament to the truth behind the numbers. These health effects are the direct cause of the continued pollution of China’s waterways by chemical and urban waste that flow directly into China’s rivers, and, therefore, directly to millions of homes.
First, the difference in rural and urban environments, and the effect that this has on health as a result of polluted water, must be acknowledged. Unlike most urban residents who usually have easy access to alternative means of water use, the rural majority have no choice but to use contaminated water, which often results in severe health consequences. It is important to remember that while both urban and rural river sources are polluted, it is mostly in rural areas that the health and societal impacts are greatest. This is due to a lack of access to clean water, as well as lower income brackets and a lack of education and medical facilities. In fact, recent estimates have shown that the rural citizenry of China, which represents 70 percent of the total population, is served by only 37.5 percent of the nation’s trained health workers.26 This fact is extremely worrying, considering new data has shown that more than “300 million rural residents,” which is about a quarter of the country’s total population, lack access to clean water.27 While this paper is not trying to undermine the impact of the severe urban pollution crisis, it does acknowledge the disparities in living standards between urban and rural populations, and the differences in access to clean water between the two types of communities. Water pollution in China is largely a result of increased national and private industry and urban development. The pollution of the nation’s rivers, including the Yangtze, seriously threatens birth mortality rates and overall health of China’s citizens.
Recent studies show that nearly 700 million people drink contaminated water in China.28 Such contaminates include both human and animal waste, which is either improperly treated by wastewater facilities or dumped directly into the river source, as well as various chemicals and pesticides from agriculture businesses, and direct industrial waste. A monthly report issued by the China National Environmental Center in June 2006 reported that:
“…drinking water quality in 16 out of 113 key cities is assessed below national standards. Of drinking water sources, 74, or 20.1 percent of the total surveyed falls short of quality requirements, while 527 million tons of drinking water, or 32.3. percent of the total, is unsuitable for drinking.”29
This intake of polluted water is the cause of numerous health problems, especially to those whose immune system is too weak to fight off disease, such as children, the elderly, and the malnourished. Despite an increase of China’s birth mortality rate in 2007 from that in 1990, preventable waterborne diseases continue to kill those most susceptible to infection at high rates.
In 2004, the World Bank conducted a study on child mortality as a result of environmental factors in rural China. The study found that access to safe drinking water could potentially cut the number of under-five child deaths from diarrhea by over 50 percent and the number of deaths from acute respiratory infection by almost 40 percent.30 Unfortunately, diarrhea is still a leading cause of death for children in rural areas. In July 2007, the OECD Environmental Indicators in China report estimated that 30,000 children die each year from drinking polluted water.31
This increase in water pollution, besides causing severe but well known waterborne diseases, has also resulted in the high emergence of cancer among people who live and drink from water sources with chemical agents. While leading waterborne diseases in China include diarrheal diseases, viral hepatitis, dysentery, typhoid fever and schistosomiasis, an unexpected rise of cancer has also emerged in the last few decades. This is a product of the chemical output into the rivers, which causes abnormal diseases and sickness that organic waste does not create.32 According to a 1996 report by China Public Health Statistics, “cancers linked to infectious agents, such as liver, stomach, and esophageal cancers, are the leading causes of death in rural China”, with the rate of liver cancer “twice that of other countries.”33 Recent studies have revealed that this rate of cancer is on the rise, and more and more scientists are directly linking this increase to the intake of known dangerous chemicals found in China’s polluted water sources. Since 1997, cancer has been the top killer in China, causing over 1.3 million deaths each year. In the year 2000, the occurrence of cancer reached 1.8 million to 2 million and the number of cancer deaths reached 1.4 million.34 This pollution has resulted in the appearance of “cancer villages,” or small communities surrounding a water source that have been hit especially hard by cancer illnesses due to their proximity to polluted water and chemical industries.
Differences of health effects do exist between chemical and waste pollutants, with chemical agents known to cause cancer and other cell abnormalities, and waste pollutants documented as causing other well-known diseases, such as cholera and dysentery.35
Case Study: “The Mother River”
The Yangtze River stretches 6,300 kilometers, or 3,906 miles, from the northwestern province of Qinghai and traverses through 186 cities, including Shanghai, before emptying into the East China Sea. It is the longest river in China and the third largest river in the world.36 The “Mother River,” as it has been called, accounts for about 36 percent of China’s freshwater sources, and has over 400 million people living on its banks.37
However, despite being so vast, water pollution in the Yangtze has become a severe problem for its users. The Yangtze derives much of its polluted waters not only from the urban pollutants from Shanghai, but also from the many industrial plants, chemical facilities, and smaller cities that line its banks. A study conducted by the Yangtze River Water Commission shows that “cities along the river discharge at least 14.2 billion tons of polluted water every year.”38 One such city includes the western community of Chongqing, which is the largest municipality in China. Home to over 35 million people, it easily generates nearly one billion tons of untreated wastewater annually.39 This waste flows unregulated into the Yangtze, and follows the flow of the tide to the many branches and other tributaries that connect to the central river. The pollution by Chongqing is now no longer concentrated in the city where it originated, but also carried hundreds of miles downstream to neighboring environments.
On the whole, the Yangtze River receives 40 percent of the country’s sewage, with 80 percent of that sewage untreated.40 Industrialism has also greatly increased the amount of chemicals that flow into the Yangtze and contaminate its waters. According to estimates, “more than 13,000 petrochemical factories out of the national total of 21,000 were built along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers.”41 This means that a little less than half of China’s chemical factories exist on the banks of the Yangtze River.
In response to the amount of wastewater in the Yangtze, the central government has planned to build 150 new wastewater treatment plants along the banks of the Yangtze by 2009. Although this effort is in part to decrease the amount of waste contaminating the river’s waters through surrounding cities and industries, it is also an acknowledgment of the effect that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam will have, and already does, on the natural flow and ecology of the Yangtze.
The Three Gorges Dam was envisioned by Chinese officials almost a century ago, and put into motion during Mao Zedong’s regime. The largest hydroelectric plant in the world, it is expected to generate an amount of energy equal to 15 nuclear power plants upon completion in 2009.42 However, the environmental and social consequences of the project may far outweigh its benefits. Already, millions of Chinese citizens have been forcibly removed from their home communities and resettled into other areas. Apart from this tragedy, however, the environmental harm that the dam is already causing on the flow and purity of the Yangtze River and its surrounding ecosystems is monumental. By disrupting and slowing the flow of water in the Yangtze, wastewater and other pollutants have began to accumulate in growing batches along the river banks and dam walls. The change in oxygen supply in the water is also disrupting fish populations and changing the environmental balance for its species. The process of eutrophication, which happens when oxygen levels deplete due to excess nutrients, cause rivers to become hypoxic, or devoid of oxygen.43 This has already occurred in parts of the Yangtze. However, scientists and officials are most concerned over the pollution caused by the dam’s reservoir, where large amounts of garbage continue to build as the water is harnessed. The reservoir will fall by 40 meters each summer as the dam operates, leaving a large expanse of concentrated garbage and other wastes that officials worry will bring disease.44
However, this disruption of the ecology affects the Yangtze in other ways. It also upsets a fragile balance that the river depends on to survive. One recent example of a change in the river’s ecology is the extinction of the Yangtze River water dolphin in 2006. The dolphin was “one of only four exclusively freshwater species in the world”, and may be the “first aquatic mammal to go extinct in more than half a century and the first large mammal to become extinct due to pollution.”45 Unfortunately, the disappearance of animal life in the Yangtze appears only to be increasing along with its rising pollution. According to recent studies, there existed 126 animal species living in the Yangtze in the mid 1980’s. This number has rapidly dwindled to 52 known species as a result of pollution by 2002.46
This loss is bigger then the extinction of a few animal species – it signals the permanent and eternal damage that has been done not only to the Yangtze River, but to water systems and ecologies around the world. In 2006, the estuaries of the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers were declared “dead zones,” or water sources that have low oxygen levels, by the United Nations.47 This declaration marks one more step toward the death of a river. Unfortunately, extinction is one thing that cannot be reversed or changed through political speeches or delayed environmental regulations, despite how successfully a nation’s economy has developed. A dead river cannot be brought back to life, just as the environmental and health effects from its death cannot be changed.
While there is no easy answer to begin to explain the possibility of a balance between economic growth and environmental sustainability, there is sound evidence behind the reasons why water pollution, despite recent efforts to halt the problem, has only increased. These reasons have to do with how politics factor into environmental regulation and conservation, as well as the relation between industry and government, or, more generally, the relationship between economic progress and environmental health. This problem reaches far beyond China but into all countries of the world, many of which have made considerably less progress in environmental advancement than China has in the past few decades. If the plight of China’s rivers, especially the Yangtze River, tells us anything, it is that environmental degradation is not a concentrated problem but a global problem, and one that will continue to harm generations of living things, both human and animal, if a balance between growth and preservation is not made.
Conclusion: Hope and Power
While the water crisis of China’s rivers is, and continues to be, extremely severe, hope for a better future does exist. This hope emerges in the form of nongovernmental organizations, the media, and the citizens themselves, despite previous incidences of censure and oppression by the communist regime. Also significant to remember are the many existing environmental laws that could be implemented if China’s actions became more transparent to the international community, as recent studies reveal the lasting impact that environmental degradation will have on future generations if immediate action is not taken.
China’s rivers paint a picture of the struggle of the natural world over the human world – of conservation over development. Gandhi said of the environmental crisis in India, “there is sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.”48
If the desire for monetary wealth and economic growth override the ability of humankind to acknowledge their connection with the environment, then all is lost. Thousands of citizens and numerous organizations have risen in response to this environmental crisis, and have seen its effects on the faces of countless others. As long as those with no political power continue to challenge those who lead and pressure them to enforce laws that benefit all beings that live on the earth, then the environment is not lost. In turn, we are not lost.
Works Citied
1 Boyle, Christine. “A China Environmental Health Project Research Brief: Water Borne Illness in China.” China Environmental Forum. 20 Aug 2007. Woodrow Wilson Center International Center for Scholars. 11 Nov 2007. URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.dfm?topic.html.
2 Economy, Elizabeth. “The Great Leap Backwards?” Foreign Affairs. Sept/Oct 2007. 27 Oct 2007. URL: http://www.foreignaffairs.com
3 Economy, Elizabeth. The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future. 2004 (London: Cornell University Press.)
4 “Estuaries of China’s Greatest Rivers Declared Dead Zones.” TerraDailyNews. 20 Oct 2006. 15 Nov 2007. URL: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Estuaries_Of_China’s_Greatest_Rivers_Declared_Dead_Zones_999.html.
5 Hodum, Ryan. “China’s Need for Wastewater Treatment, Clean Energy Grows.” World Watch Institute. 1 Feb 2007. 12 Nov 2007. URL: http://worldwatch.org/
6 Jun, Ma. China’s Water Crisis. 2004. (Norfolk: Eastbridge Press.)
7 Karasov, Corliss. “On a Different Scale: Putting China’s Environmental Crisis in Perspective.” Environmental Health Perspectives. Vol 108:10. 0ct 2000. URL: http://www.ephonline.org/members/1999/107p251-256wu/wu-full.html.
8 Macartney, Jane. “Pollution have put Yangtze on brink of catastrophe.” 31 May 2006. The Times. URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article669908.ece
9 “Pollution Turning Yangtze River Cancerous.” TerraDaily.com. 30 May 2006. 27 Oct 2007. URL: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/pollution_turning_Chinese_Yangtze_river_Cancerous.html.
10 Rahnema, Majid. The Post Development Reader. 2003 (London: Zed Books.)
11 Ritter, Peter. “Farewell to the Yangtze Dolphin.” The Time. 10 Aug 2007. 25 Nov 2007. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1651819,00.html
12 “The Most Polluted Places on Earth: How Reports Rank Areas of Pollutants and Pollute.” CBS News. June 6, 2007. URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/06/eveningnews/main2895653.shtml.
13 “Water Pollution and Human Health in China.” Environmental Health Perspectives. Vol 107:4. April 1999. URL: http://ephnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1999/107p251-256wu/abstract.html.
14 Yan Lee, Debbie. “A China Environmental Health Project Research Brief: Child Mortality and Water Pollution in China.” China Environmental Forum. 20 July 2007. Woodrow Wilson Center International Center for Scholars. 11 Nov 2007. URL: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic2.html.
15 Yingling, Liu. “China’s Drinking Water Situation Grim; Heavy Pollution to Blame.” 3 Aug 2006. 24 Nov 2007. URL: http://worldwatch.org/node/4423.
16 Yuogou, Lin. “Water Pollution In China creates cancer village.” Central News Agency. 13 Nov 2007.