Watchdog shifts gears in Yangtze pollution search

With the completion of a pilot project in March to identify polluting wastewater outlets along the Yangtze River, the country's top environmental watchdog is turning full-bore to satellite remote sensing and unmanned aerial and surface vehicles as it expands the process to the river's major tributaries.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment will undertake a comprehensive investigation of wastewater outlets covering nine tributaries, including the Minjiang, Chishui and Ganjiang rivers, over the next two years, in addition to its further investigations of the main channel of the Yangtze and Taihu Lake.

Yang Haijun, an expert in the ministry's satellite environment center, said satellite remote sensing helps in defining the area for the investigation because of its capacity to see the distribution of population and enterprises.