XII. Resources, Environment and Work Safety

A total of 191.6 thousand hectares of cultivated land was used for construction purpose in 2008. An area of 24.8 thousand hectares of cultivated land was destroyed by disasters, 7.6 thousand hectares of farmland was converted into land for ecological preservation. The structural adjustment to agriculture led to a reduction of 24.9 thousand hectares of cultivated land. Land reclamation and re-development programs added 229.6 thousand hectares of cultivated land. As a result, the year 2008 witnessed a net reduction of 19.3 thousand hectares of cultivated land.

The total stock of water resources in 2008 was 2,712.7 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 7.4 percent, or 2,048 cubic meters in per capita terms, up by 6.9 percent. The annual average precipitation was 659 millimeters, up by 8.0 percent. Large reservoirs in China stored 196.2 billion cubic meters of water at the end of 2008, 9.3 billion cubic meters more than that at the end of 2007. Total water consumption went up by 0.4 percent to reach 584.0 billion cubic meters, of which water consumption for living purposes rose by 0.6 percent, for industrial use up by 1.8 percent, for agricultural use down by 0.2 percent, and for ecological water supplement down by 0.7 percent. Water consumption for every 10 thousand yuan worth of GDP produced was 231.8 cubic meters, a decline of 7.9 percent. Water consumption for every 10 thousand yuan worth of industrial value added was 130.3 cubic meters, down by 7.0 percent. Per capita water consumption was 440.9 cubic meters, down by 0.1 percent.

National land surveys and geological explorations discovered a total of 209 new mineral deposits in large or medium size, including 38 energy mineral deposits, 90 metallic mineral deposits, 79 non-metallic mineral deposits and 2 aqueous and gaseous deposits. Increased reserves were found for 57 minerals, including 1.34 billion tons of crude oil, 647.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 23.11 billion tons of coal.

A total of 4.77 million hectares of forest were planted, of which 3.29 million were afforested by manpower. Some 3.12 million hectares were afforested through key afforestation projects, accounting for 65.4 percent of the total planted area of the year. About 2.31 billion trees were planted in 2008 by volunteers. By the end of 2008, there were 2,538 natural reserves including 303 national ones. A total of 47 thousand square kilometers of eroded land were put under comprehensive treatment programs, and 26 thousand square kilometers of land were closed for nurture and protection in areas suffering water and soil erosion.

Preliminary estimation indicated that the total energy consumption in 2008 amounted to 2.85 billion tons of standard coal equivalent, up 4.0 percent over 2007. The consumption of coal was 2.74 billion tons, up 3.0 percent; crude oil 360 million tons, up 5.1 percent; natural gas 80.7 billion cubic meters, up 10.1 percent; and electric power 3,450.2 billion kilowatt hours, up 5.6 percent. The national energy consumption per 10,000 yuan went down by 4.59 percent. The consumption of major kinds of raw materials included 540 million tons of rolled steel, up 4.2 percent; 5.38 million tons of copper, up by 6.9 percent; 12.60 million tons of electrolytic aluminum, up by 4.3 percent; 9.98 million tons of ethylene, down by 2.9 percent; and 1.37 billion tons of cement, up 3.5 percent.

Monitoring of water quality on 409 sections of the 7 major water systems in China showed that 55.0 percent of the sections met the national quality standard from Grade I to Grade III for surface water, up by 5.1 percentage points; and 20.8 percent were worse than Grade V, down by 2.8 percentage points compared with that in the previous year. Generally, the water quality in the 7 major water systems continued to improve with some river basins still having serious pollution.