Water quality improves at source of major Chinese river

Photo shows the Chinese characters "Han Jiang Yuan" (Source of the Hanjiang River) engraved on a rocky cliff at the Hanjiang River's source in Ningqiang county, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (People's Daily Online/Bai Ge)

Conservation efforts have significantly enhanced water quality at the source of the Hanjiang River, China's largest tributary of the Yangtze.

As the source of Hanjing River, Ningqiang county, in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, is vital to the country's South-to-North Water Diversion Project and the biodiversity of the Qinba Mountains.

Local authorities have implemented a series of measures to protect the aquatic ecosystem. These include instituting a "lake chief" system for oversight, imposing logging and grazing bans, restricting polluting enterprises, renovating drinking water facilities and rural toilets, and prohibiting direct sewage discharge, all aimed at improving water quality.

Additional initiatives include river channel regulation, embankment construction, riverbank greening, and planting aquatic vegetation to create a self-sustaining environmental cycle.

(Intern Li Jingyan contributed to this story.)

Photo shows a cascading waterfall at the source of the Hanjiang River in Ningqiang county, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (People's Daily Online/Bai Ge)

Photo shows Jiutai Mountain in Ningqiang county, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (People's Daily Online/Bai Ge)

Photo shows tourists at a wetland park in Ningqiang county, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (People's Daily Online/Bai Ge)

Photo shows Ningqiang county surrounded by lucid water and lush mountains in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (Photo/ Liu Binglin)

Photo shows a street in Ningqiang county, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. (Photo/ Liu Binglin)