Serious soil erosion. In the early days of People's Republic of China (PRC), the area of soil erosion in China was1160,000 square kilometers. According to the satellite remote sensing calculation 1992, the soil erosion area in China is17.94 million square kilometers, accounting for 18.7% of the national territory. The areas with particularly serious soil erosion in China (from north to south) mainly include: the upper reaches of Xiliao River, Loess Plateau, the middle and upper reaches of Jialing River, the lower reaches of Jinsha River, Hengduan Mountain area and some hilly areas in the south.
Desertification is developing rapidly. China is one of the countries that suffer the most from desertification in the world. The desert, Gobi and desertified land in the northern region has exceeded 654.38+0.49 million square kilometers, accounting for about 654.38+0.05% of the national territory. In 1980s, the desertified land expanded at an average annual rate of 265.438 million square kilometers. In the past 25 years, * * * has lost 39,000 square kilometers of land. At present, about 59 million mu of farmland, 74 million mu of grassland, more than 2,000 kilometers of railways and many towns, mines and villages are threatened by desertification.
Forest resources have been drastically reduced. In many major forest areas in China, the forest area has been greatly reduced, and the lush forests in the past are gone forever. The amount of forest harvesting and consumption in China far exceeds the growth of trees. According to the current consumption level, the vast majority of state-owned forest industry enterprises will face the situation that no mature forest can be harvested. Forest deficit is the most typical ecological deficit, and the present generation has prematurely consumed too many forest resources that future generations should enjoy.
The accelerated extinction of biological species. It is estimated that about 15-20% of plant species in China are endangered, and there are as many as 4,000-5,000 endangered plants in higher plants alone. In the past 30 years, the data show that the distribution area of precious wild animals such as antelope, baiji, wild elephant, panda and Siberian tiger has decreased obviously, and the population has dropped sharply.
As the groundwater level drops, the lake area shrinks. Over the years, due to over-exploitation of groundwater, eight over-exploited areas with a total area of 6.5438+0.5 million square kilometers have been formed in the northern region, resulting in an average annual decline of the groundwater level in North China of 654.38+0.2 cm. Since 1949, the number of lakes in China has decreased by more than 500, and the area has decreased by about 18600 square kilometers, accounting for 26.3% of the existing area. The water storage capacity of lakes decreased by 51300 million cubic meters, of which fresh water decreased by 34 billion cubic meters.
Water pollution has increased significantly. According to 1987 typical city monitoring survey, 42% of urban drinking water sources are seriously polluted; 63% cities are polluted to varying degrees. Of the 532 rivers surveyed, 82% were polluted to varying degrees. About 700 million people in China drink water with excessive E.coli, and about 654.38+700 million people drink water polluted by organic matter.
The air pollution is serious. The air pollution in China belongs to soot pollution, which is more serious in the north than in the south. The pollution momentum of small and medium-sized cities is greater than that of big cities; Coal-producing areas are more important than non-coal-producing areas; Winter is more important than summer; Morning and evening are more important than noon. At present, coal is the main energy consumption in China, accounting for about three quarters of the total energy consumption. Coal is a kind of dirty energy, and combustion produces a lot of pollutants such as dust and carbon dioxide, which is the main reason for the increasingly serious air pollution in China. In recent years, acid rain known as "death in the air" has spread continuously, affecting not only the mainland, but also Hong Kong, Macao and neighboring countries.
Environmental pollution spread to the countryside. The rapid development of township enterprises has become an important direction of rural industrialization and an intermediary for the transformation from dual economic structure to modern economic structure. At the same time, it has also brought more extensive pollution to the rural ecological environment, resulting in more serious waste of agricultural resources and mineral resources. Before 1978, the environmental pollution in rural areas was mainly chemical fertilizers and pesticides. After 1978, township enterprises became the main pollution sources in rural areas.
Environment is a special asset. Ecological destruction and environmental pollution themselves constitute economic losses and wealth losses. The deterioration of ecological indicators has directly and obviously affected the current economic indicators and expected economic trends.
At present, the reasons for the continuous deterioration of the ecological environment in China are various and complicated. Mainly from three major pressures:
Population pressure. The rapid growth of China's modern population has become the biggest obstacle to China's modernization process and the biggest pressure on China's ecological environment. Forced to survive, people destroy forests, reclaim lakes, dig and destroy vegetation. The unreasonable activities of a large number of people exceed the payment capacity, output capacity and carrying capacity of many support systems in nature.
The pressure of industrialization. China's industrialization started late and the starting point of development was low, so it faced the arduous task of catching up with developed countries. It not only supports high-speed economic growth with high capital investment, but also exchanges economic prosperity with high resource consumption and high environmental cost, paying attention to short-term benefits and losing long-term plans; Paying attention to economy and neglecting ecology, short-term economic behavior brings long-term and cumulative consequences to the ecological environment.
Market pressure. China is in the process of market economy transformation. Market economy itself will produce many external economic effects or external uneconomical effects, and environmental pollution is the most obvious example. Environment is a kind of public property. The provision of such public property (such as clean water and good atmospheric environment) is beneficial to everyone, and more people will enjoy its benefits without increasing the total cost. But if there is no public property, everyone's interests will be damaged. Characteristics of public property or public property being destroyed (such as water pollution, air pollution, etc.). ) determines that neither individuals nor the market will provide costs and services for controlling environmental pollution, and only the government is the provider of public property. The greater the pressure of market economy, the greater the responsibility of the government to prevent and control environmental pollution and rectify land and resources.
In order to change the deteriorating environmental situation in our country, we should take urgent action, otherwise, the expanding ecological deficit will greatly reduce or cover up the achievements made in other fields.