Resource information
Recurring environmental incidents have
led to increased public awareness of the threats of
environmental pollution to public health and rapid
urbanization is driving up land prices in Chinese cities. As
a result of these developments, industrial plant relocations
are numerous, particularly of heavily polluting industrial
plants, such as pesticide, coke, steel plants, and chemical
industry plants. These relocations are leaving behind many
contaminated sites in the cities, sometimes with various
pollutants, as well as complex and serious soil and
groundwater contamination. It has become increasingly clear
that China needs a comprehensive policy, regulatory,
technical, financial, and management framework to
effectively track, evaluate and clean up the numerous
contaminated sites. Currently, China has no specific law
regulating contaminated site remediation and management.
Soil protection provisions do exist in some generic
legislation, in the form of air and water protection laws,
solid waste laws, and toxic substance control acts. However,
due to their different objectives and scopes, they are often
aimed at different aspects of the issue. As a result,
existing provisions, even if fully implemented, may not
fully cover the whole range of threats related to site
contamination. Hence, learning from the experiences of other
countries is essential for the Chinese government to
increase its capacity and preparedness to manage issues
related to site contamination.
