The Nanming River, which was heavily polluted just four years ago, will embrace a new lease on life next year when it becomes a tourism hot spot, indicating the success of long-running efforts to control water pollution, according to officials and experts.
"I never imagined that the river could become so clean in such a short time, considering how black and smelly it was for many decades," said Wang Runzhi, 53, who has lived by the river, which runs through Guiyang city in Guizhou province, for 20 years.
The river, in Southwest China, is one of the sources of a branch of the Yangtze River. It has nurtured the people of Giuyang and the surrounding areas for more than 500 years, but a rising population and higher levels of industrial activity resulted in the water quality plummeting in the past 30 years.
Once, plastic bags and other garbage floated on the surface of the water, household waste was piled along the banks and a large number of industrial plants discharged untreated wastewater directly into the river, according to the city government. The water quality didn't even meet level five of the national standards, meaning it was unusable for any purpose.
"It was too smelly to open the windows in summer, the water had turned black and there were no fish living in it anymore," Wang said. Now, though, she is happy to spend time on the riverbank: "I like to walk along the river with my grandchildren after dinner. We see many people jogging there, too."
Wang used to work in a small riverside factory that made facemasks from plastic and fabric. The plant's untreated sewage was discharged directly into the water, so it was closed down at the start of the century, when the authorities introduced measures to control the severe pollution.
Recognizing the urgent need to improve the water quality, the local government launched several cleaning projects over the past 20 years, but the level of pollution continued to rise, peaking in 2012.
For the latest round of cleanup projects, which began in 2012, the authorities established a public-private partnership, an entirely new anti-pollution model that combines the different strengths of government and business, according to Chen Lizi, assistant to the vice-president of China Water Environment Group, which provides the government with pollution-control solutions.
Chen Hailin, the company's investment manager, said that under the partnership model, the company will play a major role in investment and formulating pollution-control plans, such as adopting new technologies and building sewage-processing plants.
He said the government will pay the company annually, rather than making a large, one-time payment, which will ease the financial burden on the authorities and allow the company to make a profit.
The adoption of advanced technologies and better planning related to the location of sewage-processing plants have resulted in cost reductions; for example, about 1 billion yuan ($152 million) was shaved off the cost of building the sewage-collection network.
The quality of the water showed signs of improvement within just two years of the project starting, and by June heavily polluted water - with quality lower than level five - accounted for just 7.5 percent of the river's total length. In 2012, the figure was 51 percent.
The second phase of the project started in 2014, aimed at further improving the water quality.
After reading the city government's assessment report, Kong Hainan, professor of environmental sciences at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, praised the effectiveness of the project and the efficient way it has been carried out. He said it is the first time a local government has adopted the PPP model for pollution control.
Chen Zhenggao, minister of housing and urban and rural development, has recommended the partnership model should be expanded to more projects, and it has already been adopted in a number of places, including Erhai Lake in Yunnan province.
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