North China's Shanxi province will begin an ecological remediation in the drainage area of the Fenhe River this year, according to the local water resources work conference on March 30.

The ecological remediation project aims to recover the Fenhe River’s surface water capacity and underground water level to what they were in the 1950s within 10 to 15 years and to improve the river’s ecological environment fundamentally.

As the second largest tributary of the Yellow River and the "mother river" of Shanxi province, the Fenhe River plays an important role in Shanxi's economic and social development.

However, its ecology was damaged by increasing water demand, coal mining and vegetation degradation due to booming economic and social development, especially around the 1980s.

Shanxi has taken a series of measures to rehabilitate the ecological environment along the Fenhe River from the 1980s, but it lacks a comprehensive project to improve the river’s ecological condition fundamentally and sustainably, said Pang Junfeng, head of the Shanxi Department of Water Resources.

This all-around project will map out protection zones in the Fenhe River's drainage area to protect and enrich the water resources of the river, which are major tasks of the project.

The Shanxi water resources authorities have drawn up the remediation project's outline and will implement it as approved by the provincial government.

Edited by Michael Thai