Strategic assessments to reduce pollution

China has started its first strategic environmental impact assessment in the three major industrial zones with the most severe pollution, aiming to provide more effective prevention from sources of pollution, the national environmental watchdog said on Tuesday.

The assessment project, a higher level of environmental impact assessment, targets the policies, plans and projects of governments. It could prevent pollution before decision-makers embark on development plans for the economy and urbanization, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said.

The project, which is expected to last until the end of 2017, will focus on three aspects - setting the bottom line in land exploration, the upper limit of pollutant emissions, and the threshold for polluting industries in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas, the three major industrial regions with severe pollution in the country, the ministry said.