Air, water, green space continue to improve
Air quality in Shanghai continued to improve in the first four months of the year.
Average concentration of PM2.5 particles dropped to 33 micrograms per cubic meter between January and April, 8.3 percent lower than the same period last year, the Shanghai Ecology and Environment Bureau said on Tuesday.
The city's air quality index was either "good" or "excellent" 97.5 percent of the time, an increase of 8.2 percentage points over the same period last year.
It was "good" or "excellent" more than 87 percent of the time last year, an increase of 2.5 percentage points over 2019.
Between January and April, around 330 companies in the city had completed measures to curb the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), the bureau said.
The emissions of four major pollutants – chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides – were down 68, 38, 47 and 28 percent, respectively, from 2015, exceeding bureau targets.
Meanwhile, the water quality of 95 percent of the 259 major rivers' cross sections in the city was up to standard, soaring 71.4 percentage points since 2015.
The city's forest coverage has reached 18.5 percent, compared with 15 percent in 2015, and per capita green space was 8.5 square meters, compared with 7.5 square meters in 2015.
