Half China' cities suffer poor-quality underground water

Beijing (CNS) -- A 2011 report released Thursday by the Ministry of Land and Resources on the quality of water in China's urban areas classified over half of underground sources as bad.

The finding was based on tests performed by the ministry at 4,110 test sites in 200 cities across the country and constitutes a sharp warning of the grim situation offacing water supply management in the nation's economic engines.

Among the surveyed sites, only 45 percent were discovered to have water qualified to acceptable standards. For the 176 cities under investigation in 2010 and 2011, 66 percent of them had no obvious improvements in underground water quality.

Urban areas that could boast changes for the better were in Sichuan, Guizhou, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Guangdong. Worsening situations in the water table were found below urban areas in Gansu, Qinghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan nand Yunnan.