China Watch (Worldwatch Institute)
September 26, 2006

The new China Water Pollution Map enables users to survey water quality, monitor pollution discharges, and track pollution sources using digital mapping.

On September 14, a Beijing-based environmental organization began operating China’s first public database of nationwide water pollution. The so-called China Water Pollution Map enables users to survey water quality, monitor pollution discharges, and track pollution sources using digital mapping. Data are available for 2004, 2005, and 2006 and are taken mainly from the 2004 China Environmental Statistics Communiqu≈Ωs and from regional bulletins on environmental and water quality. Ma Jun, director of the nongovernmental Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, which is building the database, says the main goal of the mapping is to expose the worst polluting businesses and to push them to shoulder their environmental responsibilities. …
The database currently lists more than 2,500 polluting enterprises, including many influential ones. For Beijing, for example, the category “who’s poisoning our hometown rivers,” lists several prominent local enterprises, including Beijing Guixianghe Soybean Industry Corporation and Beijing Automobile Works Co. Ltd. …
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