Water quality rankings of key cities disclosed

Publicity move aims to put pressure on officials to make improvements

The top environmental watchdog made public the water quality rankings of major cities across the country for the first time on Tuesday, hoping to pressure local governments to redouble their efforts to improve water quality via media exposure.

The country experienced a general improvement in its surface water quality in the first quarter of this year. Of the 1,940 national monitoring sections, 74.3 percent were found to have fairly good water quality - at or above Grade III in China's five-tier water quality system, up by 8 percentage points year-on-year - according to a media release from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on Tuesday.