Monitoring of oceanic water quality at 301 offshore monitoring stations indicated that oceanic water met the national quality standard Grade I and II in 70.4 percent of the stations, up by 7.6 percentage points from the previous year; water quality at 11.3 percent of the stations met Grade III standard, down by 0.5 percentage points; and water of Grade IV or inferior quality was found at 18.3 percent of the stations, down by 7.0 percentage points. A total of 137 thousand square kilometers of oceanic waters did not meet the quality standard for clean oceanic water, a decrease of 8 thousand square kilometers. Of this total, seriously polluted oceanic area occupied 25 thousand square kilometers. Seriously polluted oceanic area in Bohai Sea occupied 3 thousand square kilometers.

In the 519 cities covered by air quality monitoring program, 399 cities reached or topped air quality standard Grade II, accounting for 76.9 percent of all cities under the program; 113 cities attained Grade III, accounting for 21.8 percent; and air quality in 7 cities was inferior to Grade III, accounting for 1.3 percent. Of the 392 cities subject to noise monitoring program, 7.9 percent enjoyed fairly good environment, 63.8 percent had good environment, 27.0 percent had light noise pollution, and 1.3 percent experienced medium noise pollution in downtown areas.

The average temperature in 2008 was 9.6℃, which was 0.5℃ lower than that in previous year. Typhoon hit China 10 times in 2008, 2 more compared with that in 2007.

At the end of 2008, the daily treatment capacity of city sewage reached 82.95 million cubic meters, up 16.1 percent over that in 2007. City sewage treatment rate was 65.3 percent, up 2.4 percentage points. The floor space with central heating systems amounted to 3.21 billion square meters, up 6.6 percent. Greenery coverage reached 31.6 percent of the urban area, up 0.3 percentage point.

In 2008, natural disasters caused 1,175.2 billion yuan worth of direct economic loss, 4.0 times more than that in previous year. Natural disasters hit 39.99 million hectares of crops, down 18.4 percent, of which 4.03 million hectares of crops was demolished, down 29.8 percent. The year 2008 witnessed 13 thousand forest fires, up by 45.2 percent. Floods and waterlog caused a direct economic loss of 63.5 billion yuan, down by 23.1 percent and left a death roll of 686, down by 41.3 percent. Drought caused a direct economic loss of 30.7 billion yuan, down by 60.9 percent. Oceanic disasters caused a direct economic loss of 20.6 billion yuan, increased by 1.3 times. The occurrence of red tides hit an accumulative area of 13,738 square kilometers, up by 18.3 percent. Disasters from low temperature, frost and snow made a total direct economic loss of 159.5 billion yuan with a death roll of 162. China registered 27 thousand geological disasters which left a death doll of 656 and made a total direct economic loss of 18.37 billion yuan. The country recorded 87 earthquakes with magnitude 5 and over, 17 of which caused disasters, causing a direct economic loss of 852.3 billion yuan and leaving a death roll of 70 thousand. Of this total, Sichuan Wenchuan Earthquake recorded 8.0-magnitude, causing a direct economic loss of 845.1 billion yuan.

The death toll due to work accidents amounted to 91,172 people, a year-on-year decrease of 10.2 percent. The death toll from work accidents every 100 million yuan worth of GDP was 0.312 people, a decline of 24.5 percent. Work accidents in industrial, mining and commercial enterprises caused 2.82 deaths out of every 100 thousand employees, down 7.5 percent. The death toll for producing one million tons of coal in coalmines was 1.182 persons, down 20.4 percent. The year 2008 witnessed 265 thousand traffic accidents, claiming 73 thousand lives, injuring 305 thousand people and causing a direct property loss of 1.01 billion yuan. The road traffic death toll per 10 thousand vehicles was 4.3 persons, a decrease of 0.8 person.