A new life for ancient waterway

The Nanming River, which was heavily polluted just four years ago, will embrace a new lease on life next year when it becomes a tourism hot spot, indicating the success of long-running efforts to control water pollution, according to officials and experts.

"I never imagined that the river could become so clean in such a short time, considering how black and smelly it was for many decades," said Wang Runzhi, 53, who has lived by the river, which runs through Guiyang city in Guizhou province, for 20 years.

The river, in Southwest China, is one of the sources of a branch of the Yangtze River. It has nurtured the people of Giuyang and the surrounding areas for more than 500 years, but a rising population and higher levels of industrial activity resulted in the water quality plummeting in the past 30 years.