China to accelerate digital, smart environmental monitoring, enforcement by 2030

China will further accelerate the digital and intelligent transformation of ecological and environmental monitoring and law enforcement during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), aiming to substantially improve regulatory efficiency, Vice-Minister of Ecology and Environment Dong Baotong said on Thursday.

Speaking at a State Council Information Office news conference, Dong said digital technologies and artificial intelligence have become key drivers of environmental supervision. Over the coming five years, however, greater emphasis will be placed on the twin pillars of monitoring and law enforcement, with advanced smart systems expected to substantially elevate both the quality and efficiency of regulatory work.

By 2030, the goal is to reduce manual participation in key business areas of the national ecological and environmental monitoring network by 70 percent and raise efficiency by more than five times, he said.

To that end, he said China will fully roll out digital upgrades in key areas such as air and water monitoring and promote intelligent upgrades of instruments and equipment at State-controlled monitoring stations.

In air quality monitoring, China will expand the use of artificial intelligence forecasting models and upgrade its air quality forecast platform. By 2030, the accuracy rate of 72-hour forecasts for days when PM2.5 exceeds standards nationwide is expected to rise to more than 80 percent.

In water monitoring, China will build more automatic sampling stations and form fleets of unmanned marine vessels, shifting away from the current model that still relies heavily on manual monitoring, he continued.

On law enforcement, Dong said China will build a smarter system that covers the entire process from problem discovery and early warning to disposal, in response to new challenges facing ecological and environmental enforcement.

The system will integrate automatic pollutant-source monitoring data, satellite remote-sensing data and online hotspot information, and use artificial intelligence and big-data analysis to identify leads more accurately and reduce low-efficiency on-site inspections, he said.

He said China will also build a smart command platform to integrate information on pollutant sources, enforcement resources, environmental quality and shared data on case handling, supporting cross-regional, cross-departmental and cross-sector enforcement.

Through digital empowerment, enforcement will shift from extensive supervision to precise governance, and from passive response to proactive prevention, Dong said, adding that the move will also help ease pressure on grassroots enforcement teams while reducing disruption and burdens on businesses.