The national ecological survey and assessment show that China's ecological situation has improved significantly
The "2015-2020 National Ecological Status Change Survey and Assessment Results" was released on the first National Ecology Day, which brought an end to this phased work jointly carried out by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and also marked the beginning of a new cycle of this normalized investigation and evaluation work.
Why is the National Ecological Status Survey and Assessment Carried Out?
The investigation and assessment of the ecological situation is an important task for the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to fulfill its responsibilities of "three determinations" (fixed functions, fixed institutions, and fixed establishments). The "Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China", "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Accelerating the Construction of Ecological Civilization", "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Comprehensively Strengthening the Protection of the Ecological Environment and Resolutely Fighting the Battle of Pollution Prevention and Control", "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Battle of Pollution Prevention and Control", "Notice of the General Office of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the > of the Construction Plan of the < Ecological Environment Monitoring Network" and other laws and documents, all have relevant requirements for regularly carrying out national ecological status surveys and assessments. This is an important basic investigation and evaluation of ecological conditions, and an effective measure to strengthen the supervision of ecological protection and restoration.
Judging from the results of past work, the investigation and evaluation of ecological status is not only a regular "physical examination" of China's ecological background, but also an important reference for China's formulation of ecological environment-related policies. Since the beginning of the 21st century, China has carried out four consecutive national ecological status surveys and assessments. In 2000, the former State Environmental Protection Administration completed a national ecological and environmental survey, which gave birth to the policy of important ecological function zones and gave birth to ecological protection red lines. Subsequently, the former Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Chinese Academy of Sciences successively completed the investigation and evaluation of the changes in the national ecological status from 2000 to 2010 and from 2010 to 2015, which played an important reference role for the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China to determine the relevant goals of ecological civilization construction, and directly served the delineation of ecological protection redlines and the ecological and environmental planning of major strategic areas such as the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the Yellow River, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. This is the fourth time that the results of this investigation and evaluation have been fully applied in important work such as the central ecological and environmental protection inspection and the strengthening of the supervision of the "Green Shield" nature reserve, and will play an important role in promoting the construction of ecological civilization in China and supporting the sustainable development of society.
How to carry out the national ecological status survey and assessment?
In 2019, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) issued the National Periodic Remote Sensing Survey and Assessment Plan for Ecological Status. At present, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has established a regular investigation and evaluation system of ecological status in key areas such as the national five-year period, the transfer payment county of the national key ecological function area once a year, the national nature reserve once a year, and the local areas under emergencies in a timely manner.
From 2015 to 2020, the national ecological status change survey and assessment work shall be formulated and issued by the state as an overall plan and uniformly deployed. National and local governments are implemented at different levels, each with its own focus and complementary advantages. At the national level, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are jointly responsible for overall design, operational guidance, quality control, comprehensive assessment, integration and release of results, production of satellite remote sensing ecological parameters, and investigation and evaluation of ecological status at the national and regional scales. At the provincial level, the provincial ecological and environmental departments are mainly responsible for the field verification of the classification and interpretation results of satellite remote sensing data, the field observation of ecosystem parameters, and the investigation and evaluation of the provincial ecological status and changes. This study focused on assessing the changes in the ecological status of the country and key regions from 2015 to 2020, and integrated the analysis of the results of previous surveys and evaluations, and comprehensively judged the overall changes in the national ecological status from 2000 to 2020.
What are the findings of the survey?
The results of this survey and evaluation show that from 2015 to 2020, the overall ecological situation of the country is stable and improving. The overall ecosystem pattern is stable, the quality of the ecosystem continues to improve, the ecosystem service function is continuously enhanced, the regional ecological protection and restoration has achieved remarkable results, and the level of biodiversity conservation has been gradually improved. However, China's ecological background is fragile, the overall level of ecosystem quality is still low, the phenomenon of important ecological space being crowded out still exists, the problem of overexploitation and irrational utilization of natural resources has not been fundamentally solved, and there is a long way to go for ecological protection and restoration. To sum up, it is mainly manifested in the following three aspects:
In terms of overall conservation effectiveness, the ecosystem pattern is more stable, and the change range of various ecosystems decreases, with an average change range of 0.23% from 2015 to 2020 (referred to as the past five years) and 0.60% from 2000 to 2015 (referred to as the first 15 years). The quality of natural ecosystems continued to improve, and in the past five years, the area of excellent and good grades (accounting for 43.31%) exceeded that of low and poor grades (accounting for 41.72%). The ecosystem service function was continuously improved, and the windbreak and sand fixation and carbon sequestration functions were significantly enhanced, with an increase of 15.63% and 10.45%, respectively.
In terms of protection of key areas, the "green line" of vegetation in the Yellow River Basin has shifted westward by about 300 km. The wetland area in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region increased by 122.50 km², and the continuous decline trend was reversed, the ecosystem quality of the Yangtze River Economic Belt improved, the overall water quality of the basin improved, and the proportion of excellent (Class I.-III.) sections increased by 7.3 percentage points compared with 2015, and the protection intensity of natural coastline in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area increased, while the growth rate of artificial coastline decreased.
In terms of human activity disturbance, the growth of urban space has slowed down significantly, and the growth rate of development and construction land in the past five years is only 6.20%, which is much lower than that in the previous 15 years. The disturbance of human activities in important ecological spaces has been effectively controlled, for example, the number and area of newly discovered key problems in national nature reserves have shown a downward trend. The phenomenon of grassland overloading and overgrazing continued to decrease, and the average livestock overload rate of key natural grasslands in China dropped to 10%.
What are the implications of the survey and assessment results for China's ecological protection work?
The assessment results fully show that under the guidance of Xi Jinping's ecological civilization thought, the concept of ecological protection of the whole people has been greatly improved, and the ecological protection and supervision system has been continuously improved, which has promoted significant changes in the ecological situation of the country. At the same time, it is also necessary to recognize the reality that China's ecological protection and restoration has a long way to go, and it will still take a long time to fully restore the degraded and damaged ecosystems. The changes and problems revealed by the survey and assessment have clearly defined the direction of our efforts to improve the ecological quality.
In order to achieve the goal of "improving the diversity, stability and sustainability of ecosystems" put forward by the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the 2023 National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection, it is recommended to accelerate the transformation of ecological protection and restoration from focusing on quantity to quality, continuously improve the stability of ecosystems, promote the coordination between high-level ecological protection and high-quality social development, strengthen the implementation of ecological supervision policies and systems, and promote the construction of ecological civilization to a higher level. To this end, the survey and evaluation report puts forward recommendations in six aspects:
The first is to optimize the development and protection pattern of land space and enhance the diversity of ecosystems with the goal of protecting natural boundaries. The aim is to reduce the occupation of ecological space at the source by strengthening the supervision of human activities. The second is to give priority to protection and natural restoration, systematically and scientifically carry out ecological protection and restoration, and improve the stability of ecosystems. The purpose is to implement the integrated protection and systematic management of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands and sands, and strengthen the transformation of the concept of ecological protection and restoration. The third is to promote green development and reduce the intensity of resource development and utilization based on the ecological carrying capacity, so as to enhance the sustainability of the ecosystem. The purpose is to realize the rational development and utilization of water resources, grassland resources, cultivated land resources, mineral resources, etc. Fourth, based on the principle of coordinated promotion of climate change adaptation and ecological protection and restoration, strengthen the ability of ecosystems to adapt to climate change, and promote the transformation of ecological protection and restoration from spatial expansion to quality improvement. Fifth, based on the ecological location characteristics and strategic development positioning of major national strategic areas, we should coordinate ecological protection and social and economic development, and promote high-quality regional development. Sixth, build a supervision system for ecological protection and restoration in the new era, strengthen the coordination and linkage mechanism of departments, and establish a new pattern of ecological protection.
