"Traditional ways of development have caused the near breakdown of China's resources and environment; and people's lives are in great danger."

Despite the challenges, the green campaign will be extended to Pearl and Liaohe rivers, the entire Yangtze River basin and some key sea coast areas, Pan said. He also called for a joint effort by the ministries of environment, water affairs, urban construction, forest and agriculture to tackle the problem.

Related readings:  Water pollution affects 200,000 in E. China city  32 firms shut down for river pollution Inefficient factories to be phased out Enough to make you sick

Zhang Jianyu, a visiting scholar at Tsinghua University, said: "The fact that SEPA has to repeatedly rely on these drastic but sometimes controversial measures to enforce some of the very basic environmental requirements reminds us that there is still a long way to go to have an environmental management system of full effectiveness and integrity."

Last year, polluted or seriously polluted water in the country's seven major river systems accounted for 26 percent of the total.

And water quality in seven out of the nine lakes under surveillance was so bad that it posed danger to human skin on contact.