Where to start to promote the high-quality development of the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River?
Nanjing is the only megacity in Jiangsu Province with a cross-river layout, with an area of 6,288.7 square kilometers and a shoreline of 280 kilometers. In recent years, Nanjing has firmly grasped the strategic orientation of "jointly grasping large-scale protection and not engaging in large-scale development", put the restoration of the ecological environment of the Yangtze River in an overwhelming position, adhered to ecological priority and green development, and strived to promote "ecological advancement, production retreat, governance advancement, pollution retreat, high-end advancement, low-end retreat", and made every effort to solve the problem of "chemical encirclement of the river", reshaped the development concept, development mode and development pattern, and led the transformation of the ecological environment, industrial structure and urban and rural appearance. In the future, it is necessary to start by solving problems and further promote the high-quality development of the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River with a high-quality ecological environment.
What are the problems faced by the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River?
Through investigation, the author's research group found that there are still some difficulties and problems in the improvement of the ecological environment of the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River.
The Yangtze River is under great pressure to ensure the safety of drinking water. Eight drinking water sources along the river are responsible for most of the city's total water supply, and heavy industry enterprises are located near many water sources. For example, there are two power plants behind the Longtan drinking water source, and their temperature outlets have been located in the Longtan drinking water source protection area for a long time, which directly affects the standard construction of the Longtan water source, and the temperature outlet relocation project will be officially launched at the end of 2021. As an important water source in Nanjing, the Yangtze River may pose a threat to the safety of drinking water sources once a sudden and basin-wide environmental pollution accident occurs.
The pressure of pollutant discharge into the river is high. There are 2,227 sewage outlets in the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River, and the long-term treatment of the water environment of the rivers entering the Yangtze River still needs to be consolidated. The demand for sewage collection and treatment of water environment infrastructure cannot be fully met, the collection and treatment efficiency is low, the diversion of rain and sewage from the pipe network in some areas is not complete, the interception and collection of sewage are not in place, and many defects are exposed in the rainy season, especially in the flood season, resulting in the decline of surface water quality in some areas.
Air pollution prevention and control are under pressure. In terms of meteorological conditions, Nangang, Nanhua and other enterprises are in the upwind direction of the main city in winter, and Meigang is in the upwind direction of the main city in summer. Iron and steel enterprises are the main source of nitrogen oxides, and petrochemical enterprises are the main source of volatile organic compounds, and these two types of pollutants are prone to photochemical reactions to form PM2.5and ozone, forming a compound type of atmospheric pollution. At present, the improvement of air quality has entered a bottleneck period, the industrial structure is still heavy, and the space and potential of industrial emission reduction are limited.
The long-term effect of shoreline wetland restoration needs to be evaluated. After the renovation of the Yangtze River shoreline, the proportion of ecological coastlines is relatively high, but many of them are channelized and hard, and there are very few natural interactive coastlines that are really in a natural state, with little artificial interference and outstanding ecological value. In recent years, a large number of industrial production coastlines and "small scattered" wharf shorelines have been withdrawn from the Yangtze River shoreline, and afforestation and artificial ecological parks are usually used to carry out ecological restoration, which shows a tendency of homogeneity and simplification of restoration plans in the short term, and there is no unified definition of the restoration standard of the Yangtze River shoreline, and there is a lack of scientific evaluation of the long-term effect of wetland restoration.
The problem of heavy encirclement of the river is a difficult point in the green and low-carbon transformation. The density of industrial parks along the Yangtze River is relatively high, and there are four major heavy industry clusters on both sides of the Yangtze River, with a large number of heavy industry enterprises and large pollution loads. Nanjing's existing energy transition mainly relies on coal-to-gas conversion or electricity from outside the region, and the choice of clean and low-carbon energy is narrow. The coast is densely packed with hazardous chemicals wharf enterprises, and more than 20,000 ships carrying dangerous goods enter and exit every year, which brings challenges to the environmental safety of the Yangtze River. The "heavy-chemical" industrial structure, the "coal-based" energy structure, and the "development-intensive" spatial structure make the green and low-carbon transformation of the Nanjing Yangtze River Economic Belt face multiple constraints on land, energy, and environment.
Countermeasures and suggestions
In order to solve the outstanding ecological and environmental problems in the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River, the author suggests the following.
Promote the green and low-carbon development of industries along the Yangtze River. Promote the industrial transformation and upgrading of Nanjing Iron and Steel and Meigang, the green development of industry-city integration, and promote Jinling Petrochemical to achieve "near-zero" emissions. Establish a "dual control" system for regional energy consumption and carbon emissions, and encourage the use of green and low-carbon energy in the park. Implement green transformation of key industries such as electric power, iron and steel, and petrochemicals. Standardize the development of chemical parks, and resolutely eliminate low-end backward, high-risk, high-energy-consuming, high-pollution and non-industrial chain chemical projects. Develop a circular economy, and further promote the construction of a circular production of enterprises, the recycling transformation of parks, and the construction of a symbiotic coupling system for industrial circulation.
Improve the access mechanism for the ecological environment. Implement the Guidelines for the Negative List for the Development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (Trial) and provincial implementation rules, and strictly control and prohibit construction projects. In line with the requirements of zoning and use control of land and spatial planning, in-depth implementation of zoning and control of the ecological environment. Promote the transfer and relocation of excess capacity that does not meet regional positioning, environmental bearing requirements and safety guarantee standards. Strictly control the use of land plots with serious soil pollution in the chemical industry, and encourage them to expand ecological space. Strict control of industrial park limits and limits.
Coordinate the protection and utilization of the Yangtze River shoreline. Coordinate the resources of the Yangtze River shoreline, coordinate the development of the left and right banks, upstream and downstream, and implement the total amount of ecological restoration and development of the main stream of the Yangtze River and the shoreline of Zhou Island. The construction of riverside parks should avoid excessive artificiality and hardening as much as possible, and it is advisable to maintain the ecological vegetation of the water boundary and the softness of the water-land boundary line under the requirements of flood control safety. Strengthen the supervision and inspection of shoreline protection and development and utilization activities, and continue to promote the crackdown on illegal occupation of coastline and damming and cofferdam construction and other violations of laws and regulations.
Strengthen coordinated governance of land and water. Strengthen the coordinated management of the main and tributaries, consolidate and improve the water quality of the tributaries entering the river, and continue to implement the treatment projects of the Jinchuan River and the Waiqinhuai River. Coordinate the relationship between the waterfront and continue to promote the classification and rectification of sewage outlets in the Yangtze River; jointly clean up and rectify sewage outlets, chemical parks and hazardous chemical terminals along the Yangtze River, and coordinate the effective connection between ship pollutant receiving facilities and urban public transfer and disposal facilities; strengthen the construction of centralized sewage treatment facilities in industrial parks; improve the supporting pipe network for sewage collection in industrial concentration areas, and promote the upgrading and transformation of sewage treatment plants in industrial concentration areas and the diversion of rain and sewage within industrial enterprises.
Promote air pollution control. Promote VOCs pollution control in chemical agglomeration areas such as Jiangbei New Material Science and Technology Park. Strengthen the management and control of enterprises in key industries such as iron and steel and petrochemical along the Yangtze River, promote the transformation of ultra-low emissions in the whole process and whole process of enterprises, and the pollutant emissions are stable below the ultra-low emission requirements. Promote the "oil to electricity" and "oil to gas" of port machinery, and take measures to gradually reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from ships.
Strengthen the prevention of environmental risks. Carry out investigation of environmental risks and hidden dangers in drinking water sources and important ecological function areas. Establish and improve the real-time monitoring system for the transportation of hazardous chemicals to prevent the risk of transportation of hazardous chemicals. Strengthen the risk control, governance and restoration of pollution from chemical legacy plots and vacated land, and optimize the technical route for soil pollution risk control and restoration. Promote the construction of "zero-waste cities", and support the co-disposal of solid waste in industrial kilns such as cement, iron and steel, and thermal power, as well as petrochemical and chemical plants such as oil refining, coal gasification, and caustic soda.
Strengthen ecosystem protection. Strict rigid management and control of ecological space protection areas. Strictly protect the river beaches, focus on the protection of the wetland habitats of Xinjizhou, Lushuiwan and Xinglongzhou-Mullet Island, and implement wildlife habitat restoration and bird habitat restoration projects. Protect the aquatic biodiversity of the Nanjing section of the Yangtze River, resolutely implement the "10-year fishing ban" on the Yangtze River, and implement the "Rescue Finless Porpoise Action". Explore the establishment of ecological field observation stations along the coastline and islands, scientifically evaluate the ecological restoration effects of coastlines and wetlands, and maintain the ecological authenticity and integrity of the Yangtze River.
Strengthen the assessment of the protection of the Yangtze River. Strictly implement the requirements of the Party Central Committee on the protection of the Yangtze River, fully implement the "party and government have the same responsibility" and "one post has two responsibilities" for ecological and environmental protection, and refine and clarify the responsibilities of governments at all levels and departments for the protection and restoration of the Yangtze River. Improve the responsibility system and assessment and evaluation system for ecological and environmental protection in the Yangtze River Basin, establish and improve the water ecological assessment mechanism in the Yangtze River Basin, and ensure that the relevant requirements of "jointly grasping large-scale protection and not engaging in large-scale development" are implemented.
The author is from Jiangsu ProvincepracticeNear-flatSpecial researcher of the Ecological Environment Base of the Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era
