Perceiving Ecological Changes | Keeping the Blue Skies

Air quality is closely related to people's lives. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that we should give the people blue skies, white clouds, and twinkling stars. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has accelerated its efforts in air pollution control. The increasing number of blue skies and white clouds has brought tangible happiness to the people. Today (August 10th), in "Perceiving Ecological Changes," let's take a look at the changes brought about by this "Blue Sky Protection War."

Less Haze

Steel Plant Lush with Greenery

Swinging, feeding geese—who would have thought this was inside a steel plant in Xingtai that's still in operation? Every weekend, a large number of tourists come, making the small supermarket at the entrance of the factory booming.

Zhang Hongyun, supermarket owner: Drinks, popsicles, and children's toys sell very well. Before, people didn't want to come here; the air was suffocating.

Air used to be a deep pain for Xingtai. In 2013, among the 74 key monitoring cities nationwide, Xingtai ranked last.

This is a photo taken by an environmental monitoring satellite of Delong Steel Plant at that time. During the worst haze, the factory's outline was almost invisible. Now, it is clearly visible, lush with greenery.

The changes in the steel industry are just a microcosm of China's winning the battle for blue skies.

To restore blue skies for the people, the country has successively launched the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action, the Three-Year Action Plan to Win the Blue Sky Protection War, and the Action for Continuous Improvement of Air Quality. Since 2013, the number of heavily polluted days has decreased by more than 90%, making China the country with the fastest improving air quality in the world.

Increasing Blue Skies

The air is filled with the fragrance of flowers and trees

As blue skies increase, the smell in the air is also changing. A research team from Tsinghua University used olfactory visualization technology to reproduce the changes in smell over time.

Lu Qi, head of the Olfactory Computing Research Group at Tsinghua University's Future Laboratory: 10 years ago, we often smelled coal smoke, indicating a very high content of PM10 particles. There were also smells like burnt match heads and disinfectant, indicating high levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. Over the past decade, the content of these pollutants has dropped significantly. Now, not only can we not smell these unpleasant odors, but we are also increasingly detecting compounds such as pinene and limonene during our experiments; these are the fragrances emitted by flowers and trees.

Space-Air-Ground Integration

Hundreds of Millions of Data Points Show Precise Governance

Behind the changes in smell is China's increasingly precise air pollution control efforts.

In Beijing, a precise space-air-ground integrated "sensing network" incorporates more than 3,000 road networks, 200,000 heavy-duty diesel vehicles, more than 2,000 construction sites, and thousands of air-related enterprises into monitoring, collecting hundreds of millions of data points daily for precise governance.

Xie Jinkai, director of the Atmospheric Environment Division of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment: In recent years, Beijing's annual average concentration of PM2.5 has dropped from nearly 90 micrograms per cubic meter to 30.5 micrograms. However, to further improve, we need to focus on improvements of 0.1 micrograms at a time, seizing every possibility for improvement.

After analyzing air data released over ten years for 339 cities, we found that PM2.5 in the air has decreased by nearly 40% per cubic meter, and the average number of blue sky days in each city has increased by 22 days.

Today in China, blue skies and white clouds are no longer a luxury. People can directly see the Beijing CBD from the rooftops of Tianjin. In Chengdu, you can photograph the beautiful snow-capped mountains 200 kilometers away from your doorstep. The number of stargazing spots announced across the country has increased 20 times compared to 2016.

Beijing resident: Now, blue skies and white clouds are not news; hazy days are the news.

Beijing resident: Before, we would take pictures when we saw blue skies. Now, we only take pictures if there's a sunset or a rainbow. With better air, our aesthetics have improved.

(Source: CNR.cn)