China to monitor water quality 'from source to tap'

Chinese scientists are expected to finish designing a monitoring network on water quality "from the source to tap" by 2015, said a senior environmental scientist here on Monday.

Scientists have been developing technologies to be applied in the monitoring and early warning network on water quality of a drainage area since 2010, said Meng Wei, head of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, attached to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Most technologies have been tested in a pilot monitoring network installed around the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower project in central China, Meng said at a meeting to assess the development of state-sponsored research programs on water conservation.

With the monitoring network, the local environment agency is able to receive alarming indications within ten minutes, down from the minimum half an hour before the network, he said.

The time the environment agency needs to handle a pollution emergency is also reduced from two days to about two hours, he added.

A string of water pollution accidents have roused serious concerns across China. The latest one happened in Lanzhou, capital city of northwest China's Gansu Province, on Friday as excessive levels of benzene were tested in the city's tap water.

[Read more: Benzene pollution sparks panic buying of bottled water in Lanzhou]

Local authorities later confirmed that crude oil leaking from a pipeline contaminated tap water, affecting 2.4 million people in Lanzhou.

A lack of environmental concerns in industrial projects has started to backfire in China, Meng said, citing that many industrial projects are located too near to the sources of water supply and threaten the safety of tap water.