The nation will develop a national monitoring system for its vital underground water supplies to help prevent pollution.

Shou Jiahua, vice-minister of land and resources, vowed yesterday to improve monitoring of the resource as a new groundwater information center was launched in Beijing.

Underground water has played an essential part in China's economic and social life, with 60 percent of its cities dependent on underground water, she said.

Ministry statistics indicate the country has 870 billion cubic meters of underground renewable fresh water, which accounts for 31 percent of its total fresh water resources.

While 16 percent of the fresh water used annually in China comes from underground supplies, the percentage is much higher in some regions. It reaches 52 percent in North China and 60 percent in Beijing.

Beijing became home to a new China Groundwater Information Center yesterday, which will draw upon the funds, talents and advanced technologies of both China and the Netherlands.

The center expects to build a national monitoring system for groundwater in three to five years, based on the world's third computer-based model of the resource. Only the Netherlands and the United States have similar models in place.

Monitoring is essential to protect underground water - the most importance source of fresh water on earth - against pollution, said Jos L. J. de Sonneville, a leading official from the Netherlands.

Zhong Ziran, director-general of the China Institute of Geo-environment Monitoring, the Chinese host of the center, promised to provide analyses of underground water at various places for local governments to refer to.

"The analyses will be based on data collected by over 20,000 monitoring stations across the country," he said.

According to Zhong, the country's latest national survey on underground water, completed earlier this month by his institute, indicates "a good situation overall, with deterioration in certain spots."

Underground water supplies in as many as 136 cities have been polluted, mainly by residential and industrial sewage as well as chemical fertilizers.

"Further deterioration can be stopped in many cases if proper measures are adopted. And our warning system will help us win valuable time," Zhong said.

(China Daily March 25, 2003)