While China continues fighting to alleviate pollution in certain cities, it has another big problem and this hides in 80% of the water from natural wells used by farms, factories, and homes in the well-populated plains.
This achieves that cannot be used for drinking or bathing due to the high pollution caused by industry and agriculture, according to new data offered by the Chinese media last Monday. It is of such magnitude that it has caused a new and great alarm about pollution in the country with the largest number of inhabitants on the planet.
After years in focus on those gray skies, the new data comes from 2.103 wells that are located in China and strikes a chord with Chinese citizens already touched by that air pollution. There are many towns and villages that depend on these wells to be able to carry out their daily chores.
Dabo Guan, a professor at the University of East Anglia who has been studying water pollution in China, maintains: «from my point of view, this indicates how water is the biggest problem for the environment in China. People in cities see pollution in the air every day, so great pressure is created from the public. But in cities, they are not able to see how bad the water pollution is. They don't have the same meaning«.
The latest published study found that 32,9 percent of wells tested in the northern and central areas of China they had a grade 4 water quality, which means that it is only usable for industry. 47,3 percent of the wells even have a worse grade, five. Contaminants found include manganese, fluoride, and triazoles, a set of components used in fungicides.
Guan ends with what heavy pollution Of supplies near the surface forced most cities to dig thousands of meters below ground for clean water and that has been sapping the capacity of those deeper aquifers.