China to curb farming near rivers in push to reverse water pollution, official says

China will impose more curbs on agriculture and widen restrictions on industrial development in the next five years in a bid to protect scarce, already contaminated water supplies from further pollution, a government official said on Friday.

The government is planning to restrict farming that encroaches on major rivers, restore wetlands and ecosystems and tackle excess water consumption in its 2021-25 five-year plan, said Zhang Bo, head of the water department at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

With per capita water resources only a quarter of the global average, China has made the restoration of contaminated supplies a priority. Zhang said the government would now take ecological value into consideration as well as economic value.

Beijing has been drawing what it calls “ecological protection red lines” that make areas off-limits to agriculture and industry. But with water demand still on the rise, it must strike a balance between bolstering economic growth, maximising agricultural output and protecting its rivers.

“Farmland that encroaches on the river is essentially not allowed to be there anyway,” Zhang said. “The drawing of ‘ecological protection red lines’ will take food security into consideration and strike that balance.”

China is in the middle of a campaign to restore the environment of the Yangtze River, which provides water to about 40 per cent of the country’s population. The river has been damaged by decades of land reclamation, water diversion and the dumping of toxic waste.

Local governments have already been demolishing dams, relocating chemical plants, restoring wetlands and banning farming and fishing in ecologically sensitive areas, but some regions still fail to meet state water standards.