Ecological desert environment suffers from industrial wastewater pollution in northwestern China

Abstract

There is an increasing number of high-energy and waterconsumption industries locating in arid regions of China. In recent years a number of pollution incidents have occurred in these desert areas, damaging the desert ecosystem, in some cases irreparably. Using the Tengger Desert and Mu Us Desert as two cases in point, the serious situation of uninhibited discharge of industrial wastewater in desert regions is discussed. How can governments effectively environmentally protect fragile desert environments and at the same time sustainably develop these areas? The authors point out the vulnerability of the ecosystem in desert areas and the prerequisites to its protection that involve the immediate strengthening of supervision, reporting and enforcement of waste disposal from manufacturing and chemical industries. China is one of the countries that suffers from the most serious desertification in the world, with 2.622 million km land area having become desert, over 27 % of the national territorial area (Ministry of Land and Resources of the People’s Republic of China 2011). The local ecosystem in areas of desertification is fragile, mainly due to the low biodiversity, poor ability of self-regulation and simple community structure (Ma et al. 1998). More and more manufacturing and chemical plants were built and caused problems of groundwater overexploitation and excessive wastewater discharge, which led to the formation of a number of large sewage pools. In some incidents, the wastewater seeped into groundwater through a sand layer and led to the deterioration of groundwater quality and the death of plants. Currently, to control the wastewater discharge into deserts and restore their local ecosystems, there is an urgent need for the government to improve the regulations and their enforcement. In September 2014, The Beijing News (2014a, c) reported that several large wastewater pools had been detected in the hinterland of the Tengger Desert and Mu Us Desert. Tengger Desert is located between the Mount Helan and the Mount Yabulai in northwest China and the Mu Us Desert is located in the south part of the Ordos region in Inner Mongolia and adjacent with Shaanxi and Ningxia. These pools were factory-waste evaporation ponds that were improperly planned for the local chemical industry use (Caixin Online 2014a). All of the pools of wastewater, each of which is as large as a football field, are full of black chemical wastewater and give off a terrible smell. The wastewater accumulated in the pools and was left to evaporate. Thereafter, the viscous sediments at the bottom were dug out and buried directly in the desert without any treatment, which recontaminated the surrounding environment (The Beijing News 2014a). The pollution is not only making the ecosystem of the desert oasis breakdown, but also having a strong negative impact on the water security. According to some local herdsmen, many livestock have been moved away from this region because of the serious grassland deterioration and environmental pollution. The cases of chemical wastewater drainage and groundwater pollution in the Tengger Desert were reported in March 2014, but drew little attention from the local governments. To maintain the local fiscal revenue, the governments hid the truth of these events from the public using the excuse of insufficient supervision and became the shelters of the & Ming Dou dou_ming@163.com