China News Service, Chongqing, November 10 (Chen Yuan) This year marks the tenth anniversary of the full implementation of the river chief system. Chongqing has established river chiefs at four levels: city, county, town and village, covering more than 5,300 rivers and 3,075 reservoirs. 18,300 river chiefs regularly patrol rivers to perform their duties. In the past ten years, a total of more than 5.36 million river chiefs have been patrolled and 310,000 river-related problems have been solved.
The picture shows the scenery of Mozi Lake in Zhongxian County, Chongqing. Photo by Chen Yuan
On November 10, a concentrated interview event in Northeast Chongqing to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Chongqing’s river chief system was held in Zhongxian County, Chongqing. Yin Pingshun, member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Chongqing Municipal Water Conservancy Bureau and deputy director of the Municipal River Chief Office, reported the above results.
Yin Pingshun said, "In the past ten years, Chongqing's river and lake management has completed the transformation from decentralized management to unified management and protection, from passive management to source prevention and control, and from government governance to national participation."
In terms of responsibility implementation, Chongqing has established a handover system for river chiefs to ensure continuous management and protection of rivers and lakes; it has made good use of the "two rulers" of incentives and accountability, and has provided supervision and incentives to 25 districts and counties for six consecutive years. Wanzhou, Chengkou, Fengjie, Wushan, Wuxi and other districts and counties have innovatively constructed river chief responsibility lists, task lists, problem lists, and river chief performance evaluation mechanisms to promote the extension of the river chief system from segmented management and control to river basin management and control.
In terms of technological empowerment and mechanism innovation, Chongqing has built a four-level shared "Smart River Chief" platform. Relying on sensing equipment throughout rivers and lakes, AI automatically identifies risks. The time limit for problem resolution is shortened from 10 days to 2 days, promoting river and lake supervision from manual patrols to all-weather precise management and control. At the same time, practices such as the innovative "river chief + court president" collaborative co-governance mechanism in Zhong County and the exploration of Fengdu Long River to promote the transformation of ecological value of rivers and lakes have emerged, forming a batch of replicable and generalizable water management experience.
In terms of ecological restoration, relying on the ten-year ban on fishing in the Yangtze River, 121 species of indigenous fish have been monitored in the main stream of the Yangtze River, an increase of 52 species compared with before the ban; the city's forest coverage rate has reached 55%, and the soil and water conservation rate has reached 72.3%. It has promoted the withdrawal of 36 small hydropower stations and carried out ecological restoration. Chongqing Huanghua Island National Wetland Park, located in Zhong County, is an important biodiversity conservation area in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. After ten years of continuous ecological conservation, wetland species on the island have continued to return.
Ecological improvement further empowers the development of people's livelihood. Chongqing has built 70 happy rivers and lakes and 821 water-friendly nodes, directly benefiting 14.71 million people, with a public satisfaction rate of 96%. Yunyang connects 8 waterfront theme parks with 99 kilometers of bicycle paths, walking paths, and running paths, returning the riverside to the citizens; Fengdu, Kaizhou and other districts and counties rely on Xingfu River and Lake to build waterfront cultural tourism projects, regularly hold dragon boat races, water sports, river beach carnivals and other events, and use the clear water of the river to activate the "flow economy" of consumption. (over)
