Cities and provinces have been named and shamed for poor water-pollution control, including Beijing and neighboring Tianjin Municipality and Hebei Province, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Wednesday.
The ministry evaluated the implementation of two water pollution control guidelines that cover China's major drainage areas, including the Yangtze River and Yellow River, for the year 2014.
Other regions brought to task include Henan and Hubei provinces, and the reservoir region of the Three Gorges Dam.
Several counties and cities that ranked the lowest for water quality during the evaluation will not be allowed to begin new projects that could cause water pollution until they pass the next annual evaluation.
These localities are Chaoyang District in Beijing, Jinghai County in Tianjin, Langfang City of Hebei, Xinxiang City of Henan, and Yichang City in Hubei.
The 2011-2015 guideline on water pollution said that 60 percent of the country's major rivers and lakes should be clean enough to be sources of drinking water supply by the end of 2015.
