Environmental Issues of China
Environme
ntal
Issues in
East Asia
(Fig. 11.2)
Globalization & Diversity: Rowntree,
Lewis, Price, Wyckoff
2
Environmental Consequences
• Chinas environmental
problems are among the
most severe of any
major country and are
getting worse:
• Air pollution
• Land Degradation
– Cropland losses
– Desertification
– Disappearing wetlands
–
–
–
–
Grassland degradation
Soil erosion
Overgrazing
Salinization
• Water pollution and
shortage
– Freshwater
– Groundwater depletion
– Oceans
• Loss of biodiversity –
increase in invasive species
Deforestation
• Other East Asian Environmental Problems
– Forests and Deforestation
• Little conservation of forests in China; much
more in Japan
• Reforestation programs have been unsuccessful
• Substantial forests found in the far north and
along Tibetan border
• China may need to import wood products for
development
Globalization & Diversity: Rowntree,
Lewis, Price, Wyckoff
4
Deforestation
• China’s natural forests have been declining over the last 50
years
• Deserts are forming quickly due to this
• A desert in China will bury an area the size of New Jersey
every five years
• Since 1949, the area that was covered by trees in China was
about 14.4 million Mha
• A few years ago, the forested area in China was only .7 Mha
• Lumber production has grown to accommodate the
demands for the growing population to make furniture
• Despite a logging ban passed in 1999, the damage has
already been done
• China suffers from soil erosion and flooding
Impacts: 2/3 of China’s Forests Lost, Leading to
Floods and Deserts
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Image Sources: The Guardian, BBC News, True Health.
Impacts: 25% of China’s Land Becoming Desert
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Image Sourcse: BBC News, New York Times, World Bank.
Desertification
• This is common in China
• During 2003, China’s EPA reported that the Gobi
Desert had grown by 52, 400 km
• About 900 square miles of land each year become
desert in China
• This is due to drought, overgrazing, incorrect use
of ground water, and logging
• Due to this, dust storms and sandstorms are more
common
• Expanding deserts cause China to lose about 1
million acres of land each year
Desertification
• Every time the desert grows by 2,500 km,
China loses about 2 to 3 billion dollars
annually
• In 2001, a new law was passed to try to
control desertification
• It asked that land occupants plant trees in
areas where deforestation had already
occurred
• And this has begun to slowly help
Over grazing- increase in number of
goat, sheep and cattle
Increasing
desertification, the
Gobi desert expanded
by 52,400 km2 from
1994 to 1999
Winter storms create
enormous dust storms
affecting Korea and
Japan
Water Shortage
• Unevenly distributed North only 1/3 of South
• 100 cities suffer from severe shortages, halting
industrial production. 300 cities out of Chinas 617
Cities suffer from shortage
• 2/3 from groundwater mining – salt water intrusion
in coastal areas and subsidence in some cities
• World’s worst cessation of river flows. Yellow river
stopped flowing during 20 of the years 1972-1997
• Number of days without flow up from 90 in 1980 to
230 in 1997
Water shortage
The farmer holds a small irrigator used to
lift water out of a canal using small
buckets
Competition rural
urban intensifying:
Residential use incr.
from 31 to 134 bil. tons
from 1995 to 2003
while industrial use
Incr. from 52 to 269 bil.
ton
Farmers can not
compete economically
1000 ton of water in
agriculture = $200
while in industry it =
$14,000 of profit.
Virtual water?
Impacts: Water - Shortage and Pollution
 More than 100 of
China's 660 cities face
extreme water
shortages.
 China supports 21% of
the world's population
with just 7% of its
water supplies.
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Image Sourcse: CNN.
 Nearly 90% of China's cities and 75% of its
lakes are impacted by water pollution.
 Coastal waters suffer from urban run-off,
red tides, and biodiversity loss.
Water Shortage & Pollution
• Hard to meet the water needs of the rising
population, especially when such large numbers
of people are concentrated in the cities, further
straining water supplies.
• “This water shortage prevents the river from
flushing its heavy load of pollutants into the
Yellow Sea. At the same time, the quantity of
wastewater dumped into the river from
nonindustry sources has increased, resulting in
ever-deteriorating conditions” (Karasov 2002).
• Some areas are categorized as not even fit to be
touched by people (Karasov 2002).
Water Pollution
Mainland China has only a per-capita share
of 2700 cubic meters per annum, ¼ of the
world's average. 2/3 of China's 660 largest
cities face water deficits.
Beijing is among the cities most affected.
"Surface water pollution across the country is
still relatively grave … 59.9 percent of rivers
were grade 3 or better, 23.7 percent of rivers
were grade 4 or 5 and 16.4 percent failed to
meet any grade standard. (China State of the
Environment 2010)
Pollution
• Other East Asian Environmental Problems (cont.)
– Mounting Pollution
• China’s development causing water pollution, toxic waste
dumping, and air pollution from the burning of high sulfur
coal
• Japan, Taiwan, South Korea have implemented stringent
pollution controls and established pollution-generating
industries outside of their countries to reduce pollution
– Environmental Issues in Japan
• Japan has a relatively clean environment
– Environmental restrictions, cleanup and pollution
exporting
» Pollution exporting: Location of their dirtier
& Diversity: Rowntree,
factories Globalization
elsewhere
in the world
Lewis, Price, Wyckoff
16
• Second most severe env.
health problem
• Sewage, agricultural and
industrial waste
contaminates water
supplies and cause many
deceases
• Much surface and
groundwater is declared
heavily polluted by heavy
metals incl. lead, mercury,
cadmium, arsenic and
fluorides.
• China’s per capita water
availability only ¼ of world
Skeletal fluorosis
average - shortage
Water pollution
•
Arsenic contaminated
water
Water Pollution
• Due to China’s population being over one billion,
their water supply is slowly disappearing.
• Their water is also being contaminated by the
industrial growth with benzene which causes
cancer.
• For example, on November 24, 2005, there was an
explosion at a chemical plant in northeastern China.
• It spilled 100 tons of benzene in the Songhua River.
• Due to this, the city of Harbin was forced to shut its
water supply to 3.8 million people for a week.
Water Pollution
• More than 700 mio people consume drinking water
contaminated with levels of animal and human
excreta that exceed maximum permissible levels by
as much as 86% in rural areas and 28% in urban
areas
• By 1996 only 5% of industrial and 17% of domestic
waste received any treatment before being
discharged in rivers, lakes, oceans etc. However
these percentages are increasing
• Also dramatic increase in fresh water aquaculture
China’s Polluted Water (Picture)
•
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200708/r171792_646585.jpg
The Polluted Yellow River!
Migrant worker, shoveling extremely polluted water and mud
from a nearly dried river.
(Johnson,Tim. China's Environmental Woes are so Large They've Begun to Generate Social Instability.
http://earthhopenetwork.net/economic_boom_batters_chinas_climate.htm)
Water Pollution
• Substances such as cadmium, lead, DDT, coliform
bacteria, and arsenic have been found in the rivers
(Some Polluted Outlets… 2004).
• “The decline in water conditions across China is directly
related to China's population growth, strong economic
growth, and uncontrolled urbanization and
semiurbanization” (Karasov 2002).
• In 1996, governmental officials in the country reported
that 40% of the sections of the Huang and Yangtze
rivers near major cities did not even fulfill the minimum
standards of water quality (Environmental Health
Perspectives 2002).
Water Pollution: Waste Water
• Waste water is when raw sewage is dumped
into the rivers and carries water-borne
diseases like typhoid, cholera, dysentery and
hepatitis
• This leads to health epidemics and deaths
• It also contaminates farmland due to irrgation.
Cancer mortality from water
pollution - TVE
Liver and stomach cancer deaths
doubled since the 1970s. China has
Highest liver cancer dead rate in the
world
• Increase in cancer
mortality over time in
control area, polluted
and most polluted
townships
• Show that increased
pollution results in
increased mortality
• steady increase in
cancer mortality over
time in polluted areas
Cancer mortality and birth defects –
changes to agriculture
Impact of new practice of
using industrial wastewater
for irrigation
70 km long canal build in
1960, daily received
400,000 m3 of untreated
wastewater from
coalmines and
petrochemical, power and
chemical plants –
increasing cancer mortality
and birth defect
Ocean pollution
Air Pollutants
• Sulfates
• Sulfur dioxide---China is the world’s leading source
of---respiratory and cardiovascular disease and acid
rain---25.5 million tons each year
• Ozone
• Black carbon---produced by cars, stoves, factories
and crop burning
• Desert dust--from sand and dust storms in the Gobi
Desert
• Mercury
Air pollution
• Most severe env.
health problem
• 3 out of 4 city
dwellers live below
Chinas air-quality
standards
• Acid rain fell on a
quarter of cities for
more than 60% of
rainy days
Iron, steel and chemical factories spew sot,
• High mortality rate
fly ash and sulfur dioxide into the air
from lung disease,
• High rate of lung
Pollutant trapped in the valley and within the
cancer because of
walls of the city. 2 million people live Taiyuan
smoking
– Shansi Province
Air Pollution
• "Overall urban air quality is good with relatively heavy pollution
in some cities. Among 471 cities, 3.6 percent met grade 1 air
quality standard, 79.2 percent met grade 2, 15.5 percent met
grade 3 and 1.7 percent failed to met grade 3."
• Interpretation: Almost one in five cities still fails to meet the low
passing grade set by the government on an annual basis.
Photograph: Guang Niu/Getty Images
China – Air Pollution
• 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in
China.
Air Pollution
• In Nov 2010, China’s EPA published a report
that said 1/3 of 113 cities had failed to meet
the national air standards
• According to the Chinese government, 1/5 of
China’s urban population breathe heavily
polluted air
• Many places smell like high-sulfur coal and
leaded gasoline
Impacts: Air Pollution
 Nearly 30% of respiratory
disease in China is
attributed to air pollution.
 500 major cities in China
exceed safe air quality
levels.
 Acid rain affects more
than 30% of the country.
Image Source: Stephanie B. Ohshita, 2005.
 Over 75% of China’s SO2 pollution, acid rain, and
CO2 emissions come from coal combustion.
Air Pollution
• Smog is so bad in Beijing and Shanghai that the
airports are often shut down due to poor visibility
• This just happened on January 29, 2013
• In January 2012, more than 150 flights to and from
Beijing were canceled due to smog
• Highways have been closed due to smog
• The air quality in Beijing is 16 times worse than NYC
• Sometimes you cannot see the building a few blocks
away
• A blue sky is rare
• In Shanghai, you often cannot see the street from
the 5th floor window
Air Pollution
• Only 1% of China’s 560 million city dwellers
are considered safe by the World Bank
• From space, astronauts can see the smog over
China
China –Air Pollution Causes
• fossil fuels:
– Coal
• For industry and heating homes.
• Coal is cheap but pollutes the air.
– Factories
– Vehicles
Lack of Industrial Controls
• Great economic development during the 1980s
led to increased pollution.
• Demand has risen over time in China and
industries have met this with increased output.
They have not added any controls to the air
released from smokestacks, though.
• By 2020, China’s carbon dioxide emissions will
surpass the U.S., and the United States and
China “would contribute more to global warming
than all other nations combined.”
Statistics in this slide are from China Revs Up 2004 unless otherwise labeled.
Air Pollution
• Now nine out of the ten cities said to have the most
serious air pollution in the world are located in China
(Schmidt 2002).
• Urban haze fills the air with the appearance of fog.
• Ding Yihui, of the China National Climate Center,
explains “This smog is mainly smoke though, not fog
which would be comprised of water vapor.
• In the large cities of China, substances such as
lead, sulfur, carbon monoxide and tiny particles of
dust are in the air.
• Respiratory diseases cause ten times as many
fatalities as in the United States.
Statistics in this slide are from China Revs Up 2004 unless otherwise labeled.
China has the most deaths from urban air pollution in the world.
(Worldwatch Institute. Coal, China, and India: A Deadly Combination for Air Pollution?,
http://www.worldwatch.org/features/vsow/2005/12/14)
A picture of downtown Hangzhou, China hazy with smog
(Skiba, Tom. Smog in downtown Hangzhou China,
http://cai.blogware.com/blog/Photos/China/_archives/2005/4/27/625887.htm)
Effects of Air Pollution
• Evan Osnos lived in Beijing and in The New Yorker he wrote,
• “After four years in Beijing, I have learned how to gauge the
pollution before I open the curtains; by dawn on the
smoggiest days, the lungs ache. “
• The US Embassy in Beijing installed an air monitor on its
roof and every hour on Twitter it posts the score from 1
being the cleanest to 500 the dirtiest
• It is normally around 500 and public health notices are
constantly posted that you should avoid all physical activity
outside.
• The only time any American city ever reached 300 was in
the midst of a forest fire
China - Effects of Air Pollution
•
•
•
•
up to 656,000 premature deaths each year
Crop damage
Climate change
Only 1% of people in cities breathe safe air
Effects of Air Pollution
• Different colored smog
• Gray comes from iron deposits blown from
steel mills
• White comes from the chemical factories
• Black comes form the coal mines and plants
Effects of Air Pollution
• China has the world’s highest number of deaths
attributed to air pollution
• In 2007, the WHO estimated that 656,000 Chinese died
prematurely due to indoor and outdoor air pollution
• Air pollution causes premature babies, low-birth weight
babies, and depresses lung functions in healthy people
• Lung cancer is the number one cause of death in China
• Asthma is on the rise
• Reduced crop production because the smog blocks
sunlight over 2/3 of eastern China where rice and wheat
are harvested
Car Emissions
• Huge shift recently towards driving cars and in
some areas of the cities, bicycles are no longer
allowed (Global Refining 2004).
• Most cars built by foreign companies, because
leaders wanted foreign investors.
• Cars sold in China have much older equipment
to control emissions than cars sold in Europe or
the United States
• Emissions standards in China are much lower
than in Europe and the U.S.
Statistics in this slide are from China Revs Up 2004 unless otherwise labeled.
CO2 emission - China
• Indoor air pollution.
Women in Xuan Wei in
Yunnan province has the
highest lung cancer rate
among Chinese women.
From the burning of
unclean coals in the
homes without
ventilation
• Improving as industries
achieve emission
standards – change from
coal to gas
Social equity on CO2 emission
• CO2 emission,
largely a by-product
of energy
production and use
• Low and middle
income countries
have seen a
relatively much
higher increase in
CO2 emission
Chinas problem – A global issue
• China largest contributor of
– Sulfur oxides
– Chorofluorocarbons
– Ozone depleting substances and
– Carbon dioxides
Coal and Air Pollution
• Coal is the number one source of air pollution
in China
• China gets 80% of its electricity and 70% of its
total power from coal
• Around 6 million tons of coal is burned
everyday to power factories, heat homes,
cook meals
Coal
• 70% of energy is from coal, used for electricity and
forging steel.
• Most homes and businesses use coal.
• Coal is cheap and extremely dirty, releasing sulfur and
other chemicals when burned.
• Some businesses in big cities have switched over to
fossil fuels, but most still rely heavily on coal.
• Previously the government had claimed that the cost of
solving the problem by building cleaner factories was too
high.
• Governmental leaders are starting to order businesses to
clean up, and some of the worst polluting factories to
shut-down.
Statistics in this slide are from China Revs Up 2004.
Reliance on coal
• China's coal consumption in 2010 was 3.2
billion metric tonnes (2.3 B in 2006)
• Mainly for production of electricity (73%)
• Also by some industries (Steel…)
Cars are now taking over the roads
(Engler, Yves & Mugyenyi Bianca. China’s Cars on Road to
Ruin. http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2484)
Bicycles once filled the streets of
China
(Wayne, J. Pen. Go Go Speed Racer.
http://www.evolvingtype.com/disabusing/webpage/
words3.htm)
Urbanization and Power
Shortages
• Although China has recently experienced
incredible urban expansion, many people
suggest that the urbanization in China’s cities is
not sustainable (Shi and Tu 2006).
• The pace of urbanization is forcing the country to
use more oil and natural gas and has created a
country hungry for electricity, which in turn
effects the global environment, as well as
China’s local environment (Zweig and Jianhai
2005).
Massive power shortage
• Power shortages yearly since 2004:
insufficient generating capacity, fuel
shortages, blackout ordered to meet a
year-end energy-efficiency target…
• deficit of 30 million kilowatt hours this
summer
Soil erosion affects 19% of land
As a result of human activity, such as
• Deforestation for agriculture and logging
• Destruction of vegetation (grassland)
• Cultivation on steep slopes
• Drying out of wetlands for agriculture and city develop
Consequences
• Deposition of sediment in the river bed causing more
frequent flooding leading to the deposition of coarse
sediment particles and secondary alkalization
• In one area more than doubling the area of eroded land
from the 1960s to 80s
Severity of Human Induced Soil
Degradation
The destruction of agricultural land poses a big problem
for China’s food security
Consequences for China’s people
• Socio-economic losses
– $72 mil per year is spend to control just one weed
imported from Brazil for pig forage
– $250 mil in annual loss arising from factory closure due
to shortage of water just in one city
– Sand storm damage app $540 mil/year
– Acid rain damage to crop and forest $730 mil/year
– $6 bil cost of green wall to protect Beijing
– $7 bil/year losses due to desertification
– $7 bil/year due to losses from other alien species
– $27 bil loss due to flood in 1998
– $54 bil/year losses due to water and air pollution
Consequences for China’s people
• Health cost
– 1996 to 2001 spending on public health incr. by 80%
– App 300,000 death/year due to air pollution
– Lead blood level in cities twice the level considered to be
dangerous
• Natural disasters
– AD300 to 1949 dust storms once every 31 years. Since
1990 almost one every year – soil erosion
– Drought damage about 160,000 km2 of cropland every
year – double the area in 1950s
– Increasing flood frequency
China in the global village
• The shear size of China’s population, its landmass and
economy guarantee that its environmental problems will
spread to the rest of the world
• Beneficial and harmful imports
– China importing natural gas and oil– reduces environmental
damage from the use of coal
– Countries transferring pollution-intensive industries to China –
using technology often prohibited in the exporting country
– China paid to accept toxic trash from developed countries
(increased from 1 mio to 11 mio t/p.a. 1990-1997)
• Exports causing damage at home
– Products go abroad but pollution stays at home
China in the global village
• Invasive spices exported (chestnut blight,
Dutch elm disease, Asian long-horned beetle)
• Exports air pollution into the atmosphere
• Exports deforestation. China’s import of wood
has increased 6 fold; mainly from Malaysia,
Papa New Guinea and Brazil
Chinas problem – A global issue
• Dust and aerial pollutants already impact
neighboring countries
• Leading importer of tropical rainforest timber
– a driving force behind tropical deforestation
• What will happen if China achieves 1st world
standard of living with 1st world
environmental impact per capita