XII. Resources, Environment and Work Safety

In 2009, land reclamation and re-development programs added 269,000 hectares of cultivated land.

In 2009, the total supply of state-owned land for construction use was 319,000 hectares, a growth of 44.2 percent over the previous year. Of this total, that for mining storage was 119,000 hectares, up 44.1 percent, for real estate development, 103,000 hectares, up 36.7 percent, for infrastructure facilities, 97,000 hectares, up 53.0 percent. In 2009, of the total 105 key cities covered by monitoring program, the composite prices for land went up by 5.0 percent over the previous year, of which, the prices for commercial used land went up by 5.6 percent, for residential land, up 7.9 percent and for industrial used land up 1.6 percent.

The total stock of water resources in 2009 was 2,376.3 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year decrease of 13.4 percent, or 1,784.9 cubic meters in per capita terms, down 13.8 percent. The annual average precipitation was 583.1 millimeters, down 10.9 percent. Large reservoirs in China stored 180.5 billion cubic meters of water at the end of 2009, 15.6 billion cubic meters less than that at the end of 2008. Total water consumption went up by 0.4 percent to reach 593.3 billion cubic meters, of which water consumption for living purposes rose 2.9 percent, for industrial use down 0.6 percent, for agricultural use up 0.6 percent, and for ecological water supplement down 9.8 percent. Water consumption for every 10,000 yuan worth of GDP produced was 209.3 cubic meters, a decline of 7.6 percent. Water consumption for every 10,000 yuan worth of industrial value added was 116.4 cubic meters, down 8.2 percent. Per capita water consumption was 445.7 cubic meters, down 0.1 percent.

National land surveys and geological explorations discovered a total of 398 new large or medium-sized mineral deposits, including 107 energy mineral deposits, 177 metallic mineral deposits, 109 non-metallic mineral deposits and 5 aqueous and gaseous deposits. Increased reserves were found for 65 minerals, including 1.12 billion tons of crude oil, 723.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 50.36 billion tons of coal.

According to the results from the seventh National Forest Inventory, by the end of 2008, the total forest areas of China were 195.45 million hectares, and the forest coverage was 20.36 percent. The total stumpage volume reached 14.913 billion cubic meters and the total forest volume 13.721 billion cubic meters.

In 2009, a total of 5.88 million hectares of forest were planted, of which 3.89 million were afforested by manpower. Some 4.47 million hectares were afforested through key afforestation projects, accounting for 76.0 percent of the total planted area of the year. About 2.48 billion trees were planted in 2009 by volunteers. By the end of 2009, there were 2,529 natural reserves including 319 national ones. A total of 48,000 square kilometers of eroded land were put under comprehensive treatment programs, and 27,000 square kilometers of land were closed for nurture and protection in areas suffering water and soil erosion. By the end of 2009, the total forest areas with set ownership were 100.93 million hectares, of this total, 75.73 million hectares obtained the forest ownership certifications.

The average temperature in 2009 was 9.8 degrees centigrade. Typhoon hit China 9 times in 2009.

Preliminary estimation indicated that the total energy consumption in 2009 amounted to 3.10 billion tons of standard coal equivalent, up 6.3 percent over 2008. The consumption of coal was 3.02 billion tons, up 9.2 percent; crude oil 380 million tons, up 7.1 percent; natural gas 88.7 billion cubic meters, up 9.1 percent; and electric power 3,697.3 billion kilowatt hours, up 6.2 percent. The national energy consumption per 10,000 yuan went down by 2.2 percent. The consumption of major kinds of raw materials included 690 million tons of rolled steel, up 22.4 percent; 7.53 million tons of copper, up 39.7 percent; 14.39 million tons of electrolytic aluminum, up 14.4 percent; 10.66 million tons of ethylene, up 8.0 percent; and 1.63 billion tons of cement, up 17.0 percent.

Monitoring of water quality on 408 sections of the 7 major water systems in China showed that 57.1 percent of the sections met the national quality standard from Grade I to Grade III for surface water, up 2.1 percentage points from the previous year; and 18.4 percent were worse than Grade V, down by 2.4 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.

Monitoring of oceanic water quality at 299 offshore monitoring stations indicated that oceanic water met the Grade I and II national quality standard in 72.9 percent of the stations, up 2.5 percentage points from the previous year; water quality at 6.0 percent of the stations met Grade III standard, down 5.3 percentage points; and water of Grade IV or inferior quality was found at 21.1 percent of the stations, up 2.8 percentage points.

In the 612 cities covered by air quality monitoring program, 504 cities reached or topped Grade II air quality standard, accounting for 82.4 percent of all cities under the program; 100 cities attained Grade III, accounting for 16.3 percent; and air quality in 8 cities was inferior to Grade III, accounting for 1.3 percent of the total. Of the 327 cities subject to noise monitoring program, 4.9 percent enjoyed fairly good environment, 70.0 percent had good environment, 23.9 percent had light noise pollution, and 1.2 percent experienced medium noise pollution in downtown areas.

At the end of 2009, the daily treatment capacity of city sewage reached 86.64 million cubic meters, up 6.9 percent from that in 2008. City sewage treatment rate was 72.3 percent, up 2.1 percentage points. The floor space with central heating systems amounted to 3.56 billion square meters, up 2.0 percent. Greenery coverage reached 34.4 percent of the urban area, up 1.1 percentage point.

In 2009, natural disasters caused 252.4 billion yuan worth of direct economic loss, 78.5 percent less than that in the previous year. Natural disasters hit 47.21 million hectares of crops, up 18.1 percent, of which 4.92 million hectares of crops were demolished, up 22.0 percent. Floods and waterlog caused a direct economic loss of 65.5 billion yuan, up 0.5 percent and left a death toll of 902, down 10.8 percent. Drought caused a direct economic loss of 109.9 billion yuan, an increase of 2.58 folds. Disasters from low temperature, frost and snow incurred a total direct economic loss of 17.2 billion yuan with a death toll of 40. Oceanic disasters caused a direct economic loss of 10.0 billion yuan, down 51.3 percent. The occurrence of red tides hit an accumulative area of 14,102 square kilometers, up 2.7 percent. China registered 10,000 geological disasters, which left a death toll of 331 and caused a total direct economic loss of 1.83 billion yuan. The country recorded 24 earthquakes with magnitude 5 and over, 8 of which caused disasters, causing a direct economic loss of 2.74 billion yuan and leaving a death toll of 3. The year 2009 witnessed 8,808 forest fires, down 37.7 percent.

The death toll due to work accidents amounted to 83,196 people, a year-on-year decrease of 8.8 percent. The death toll from work accidents every 100 million yuan worth of GDP was 0.248 people, a decline of 20.5 percent. Work accidents in industrial, mining and commercial enterprises caused 2.4 deaths out of every 100,000 employees, down 14.9 percent. The death toll for producing 1 million tons of coal in coalmines was 0.892 persons, down 24.5 percent. The year 2009 witnessed 238,000 traffic accidents, claiming 68,000 lives, injuring 275,000 people and causing a direct property loss of 910 million yuan. The road traffic death toll per 10,000 vehicles was 3.6 persons, a decrease of 0.7 person.

Notes:

1. All figures in this Communiqué are preliminary statistics.

2. Statistics in this Communiqué do not include Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan Province.

3. Due to the rounding-off reasons, the subentries may not add up to the aggregate totals.

4. Gross domestic product (GDP) and value added as quoted in this Communiqué are calculated at current prices, whereas their growth rates are at constant prices.

5. Six highly energy-consuming industries are: manufacture of raw chemical materials and chemical products, manufacture of non-metallic mineral products, smelting and pressing of ferrous metals, smelting and pressing of non-ferrous metals, oil processing, coking and nuclear fuel processing, and production and supply of electricity and heat.

6. Output and consumption of rolled steel include duplicated counting of rolled steel as intermediate inputs used for producing other types of rolled steel.

7. The national total of fixed assets investment is larger than the aggregate sum by adding up the subtotals of fixed assets investment in the eastern areas, central areas, western areas and northeast areas due to the fact that some of the trans-regional investments are not covered by regional figures. The eastern areas include 10 provinces and municipalities: Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Guangdong and Hainan; central areas cover 6 provinces: Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and Hunan; western areas include 12 provinces, autonomous regions and municipality directly under the Central Government: Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang; northeastern areas include 3 provinces: Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang.

8. The investment in real estate includes the investment made in real estate development, construction of buildings for own use, property management, intermediary services and other real estate development.

9. In table 11, banking refers to security analysis and consultancy, services auxiliary to insurance and other banking activities according to the national economic industry classification.

10. The original premium income received by the insurance companies refers to the premium income from original insurance contracts confirmed by the insurance companies.

11. Special movies refer to those using different display modes in terms of projection techniques, equipment and program as compared with the ordinary cinemas, such as IMAX movies, 3D movies, 4D movies, multidimensional movies and fulldome movies.

12. The number of people covered in urban basic health insurance programs for urban staff and workers include staff and workers and retirees insured. The urban basic health insurance programs for urban residents refer to urban non-employed residents who are not covered by the urban basic health insurance programs for staff and workers.

13. Five-guarantee relief in rural areas refers to villagers who are aged, disabled or under the age of 16 and have no ability to work, no source of income and no statutory obligors to provide for them, bring them up or support them, or whose statutory obligors have no ability to provide for them, bring them up or support them, shall enjoy life-care and physical care in terms of food, clothing, housing, medical care and funeral expenses.

14. Total supply of land for construction use refers to the supply of state-owned land for construction use with the land-used right sold, allocated or leased to units or individuals by the municipal or county governments according to annual land supply plan and in line with relevant laws in the reporting period.

15. According to the Technical Standards for Monitoring Land Prices in Cities, land prices refer to land price level which is based on prices in selected monitoring cities, incorporating transaction prices on comprehensive land market and real estate market which reflects the overall land price level in cities. Comprehensive land prices refer to the average price level of land for different purpose of use in the same city or region.

16. The consumption of water for producing 10,000 yuan worth of GDP is calculated at 2005 constant prices. The turnover of post and telecommunication services is calculated at the constant prices of 2000.

Source: www.stats.gov.cn