Balancing Water Pollution Control with Biodiversity Conservation: CBCGDF-OceanWetlands’ Feedback to “Guidelines for the Governance of Rural Black and Odorous Water Bodies (Draft）”

In a recent development, the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF)’s OceanWetlands Working Group actively responded to the call for feedback on the draft “Guidelines for the Governance of Rural Black and Odorous Water Bodies” issued by China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

Rural water environment management in China is a crucial component of the “Beautiful Countryside Construction” strategy. However, the presence of black and odorous water bodies in rural areas has severely affected the quality of the living environment, causing inconvenience and health hazards to local residents. The foul odors and pollution not only impact air quality but can also lead to water source contamination, posing threats to drinking water safety and public health. Consequently, the governance of rural black and odorous water bodies directly affects people’s quality of life and health and plays a pivotal role in maintaining ecological balance and aquatic biodiversity.

In recent years, with the advancement of China’s water pollution prevention and control efforts, environmental projects like the governance of urban black and odorous water bodies have been vigorously pursued, often involving dredging and desilting of waterways as common practices. However, many of these projects, with budgets often reaching tens of millions, have adopted crude methods that overlook the destructive consequences for benthic organisms, fish, birds, insects, amphibians, microorganisms, and more. This approach raises significant concerns.

The discussion emphasized the critical importance of ensuring synergy between the governance of black and odorous water bodies and biodiversity conservation. Biodiversity is a key component of aquatic ecosystems, enriching their ecological functions and maintaining ecological balance. It is also the basis for “nature-based solutions” to address issues in problem water bodies. Nevertheless, inappropriate governance methods may have adverse effects on aquatic biodiversity. For example, excessive removal of aquatic plants or alterations in water flow dynamics can lead to the destruction of habitats for fish and other aquatic organisms, leaving them without places to thrive. Therefore, it is essential to comprehensively consider biodiversity in the governance of rural black and odorous water bodies and employ eco-friendly approaches to ensure that governance measures do not harm aquatic life while maintaining ecological balance.

The meeting highlighted the importance of decision-making consultation as the foundation of robust governance, leveraging the flexible expertise of a national first-tier academic society. CBCGDF, as such a national biodiversity society, is committed to actively serving the scientific decision-making of government and contributing to the construction of ecological civilization. Therefore, during this work meeting, discussions and research were conducted on two documents: the draft “Guidelines for the Governance of Rural Black and Odorous Water Bodies” and the “Explanatory Notes for the Revision of the Guidelines for the Governance of Rural Black and Odorous Water Bodies.” CBCGDF provided five recommendations as constructive feedback for the decision-making authorities to consider.

(Note: This article is based on daily work records and conference proceedings for reference.)

Written by Samantha
Reviewed by GreenGrass

References:

  1. Appeal from CBCGDF Research Office: Stop Rough River Dredging in Huludao, Liaoning https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/156894005
  2. Municipal Housing and Construction Bureau Visits CBCGDF for Communication on Central Finance Urban Black and Odorous Water Body Governance Projects https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1671791470015110156
  3. Serious Issues in Many Dredging and Desilting Pollution Control Projects | ZHOU Jinfeng on Ecological Civilization (Lecture 51) https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1672545997804945002

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