Monitoring platform ensures rapid action to tackle contamination

Ankang city in Shaanxi province is a key source of water for the central route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. It has established a digital platform that includes a monitoring system that covers all major bodies of water in the city, and an emergency response system that coordinates the activities of a number of government departments in the event of water contamination incidents.

About 68 percent of the water in the Danjiangkou Reservoir, a prime source for the project, comes from the Hanjiang River, and more than 20 percent of the 1,577-kilometer-long river runs through Ankang.

All 1,037 rivers in the city with watersheds bigger than 5 square kilometers are monitored by cameras so their real-time condition can be checked at any time via a computer link, said Luo Lan, an official with the Ankang emergency response center for the water diversion project.