An alarming finding was revealed by Shanghai's local environmental authority this week, stating that only 10 percent of China's biggest city are functioning well while approximately 65 percent are so polluted they are not doing well at all. 

According to China.org, more than half of Shanghai's waterways cannot properly function since they are heavily polluted. To be exact, 65 percent of the waterways are in bad shape.

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The Shanghai Environment Monitoring Center, the city's local environment authority, did some testing for this updated report on the city's waterways.

In the course of their study, they tested 100 spots in Shanghai and surprisingly, they found that only 10 percent are in good shape or in good quality.

On the other hand, 16 percent of the waterways were moderately polluted, while 65 percent were really heavily polluted as proven by the dark, musty and pungent water flowing through them.

In light of the issue, district authorities and the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau are to work hand-in-hand in solving the problem by cleaning the mess and creating and imposing means that would require regular inspection of the city's waterways.

Wei Huajun, the director of the bureau said they did the inspection on the waterways of Shanghai after they received a lot of requests from local water authorities and citizens to do so.

"Water quality in Shanghai's major rivers and creeks have been under control but there is still a lot of work to do on the smaller waterways," the director added. "The 100 samples were collected from different parts across the city, which gave us a general idea of the overall situation."

Shanghai's major waterways are the Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek. Apart from these two, the city has an estimated 26,000 watercourses, according to ECNS. 

As per the report by Wei Huajun's team, the heavily polluted waterways were found in Baoshan, Xuhui, Changning, Jiading and Songjiang districts. 

As for the most polluted waterways, authorities listed Shengzhaibang in Baoshan District, Nenjiang River in Yangpu District and waterways located in Xinchang Town, Heqing Town, Pudong's Xuanqiao Town, Hangtou Town and the districts of Qingpu, Fengxian, Jinshan and Minhang.

On a positive note, authorities said the Huangpu River and the Yangtze River's water quality has already improved compared to last year's records. 

TagsWaterways, Environment, Science