'Health check' of China's longest river

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Yangtze River, China's longest river and world's third longest, has undergone a "health check" in recent months. And the result, published on Tuesday by China's National Audit Office, is not completely good.

The audit report mainly covers the environment protection work done from 2016 to 2018 in the Yangtze River economic belt, which counts for about 40 percent of China's total GDP.

The range of Yangtze River economic belt /Graph by CGTN's Zhang Xuecheng

The overall condition is getting better, the report said, as local government put hard effort in garbage management and pollution reverting.

A total of 2,486, or 99.84 percent of pollution-heavy factories have been closed. And 90 percent of key industrial clusters are equipped with waste water treatment facilities.

The bright side of environment protection works in China's Yangtze River economic belt /Graph by CGTN's Yu Peng

But a string of problems are also found, with over-exploitation the most serious one. Take a look at the video created by our reporter Yang Chengxi to find out more.

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Yangtze River economic belt covers 11 of China's 34 provincial-level areas. The 6,397-kilometer-long river covers the most important area in China that feeds about one-third of the national population.

(Cover photo credit: VCG)