Water quality improvements visible with river chief system

China's river chief system - in which government officials are assigned to take charge of protecting waterways in their area - is steadily being rolled out nationwide as part of a broad effort to prevent pollution.

The central government pledged in December last year that the system would cover the entire country within two years.

Now at the halfway point, river chiefs have been installed in the key Taihu Lake Basin, covering Shanghai and parts of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Fujian provinces.