China Vs. Water Pollution: Who's Winning?

China is making headway in the fight against water pollution, according to the government's own analysis.

"The Chinese government has claimed it has made big strides to exceed its 2014 targets for cutting water pollution. It is still in the process, however, of overcoming a decades-old lack of environmental oversight," Deutsche Welle, a German broadcaster, reported.

In October, China's Ministry of Environmental Protection revealed its progress on its 2014 goals.

"In the first half of 2014, emissions of ammonia nitrogen and chemical oxygen demand (a measure of organic pollutants in water) dropped by 2.3 percent and 2.7 percent respectively, [the ministry reported], adding that the overall target for the whole of 2014 was a 2-percent cut in water pollution across the nation," the report said.

An expert seemed to see the results as substantive. "With more stringent waste-water discharge standards in some sectors, we should expect to see further reduction ... in the future," said Debra Tan, director of Hong Kong-based think-tank China Water Risk, according to Reuters.

Reports have said that the government is gearing up to release a special action plan to clean up its waterways, the news article said.

China is struggling with a water pollution emergency. "A lack of environmental oversight during decades of economic growth has caused a dire water crisis in China, as toxic waste from factories has left 70 percent of rivers and lakes and over half its groundwater polluted," according to Reuters.

Water pollution is a major challenge to China's enormous water diversion project, according to Scott Moore, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The project aims to bring water to arid regions.

"Water quality problems were dramatically underestimated, particularly along the Eastern Route. The Eastern Route passes through some of the most densely populated and heavily industrialized parts of China. As a result, there is substantial pollution from a wide range of sources. The difficulty of controlling this pollution was underestimated, and large numbers of water treatment plants had to be constructed to bring water quality to the necessary standard, at considerable expense," Moore recently told the New York Times.