How to improve the national water environment standard system?

Environmental standards are the yardstick for assessing the degree of environmental quality and the degree of corporate environmental pollution control. They are the basis for the environmental protection authorities and related industries' environmental protection authorities to carry out environmental management, supervision and law enforcement, and environmental monitoring. They are also specific to China’s environmental protection laws and regulations. And indexing. Due to the particularity and importance of water, and the fact that there are many water and wading departments, the environmental standards of water are more important and complex.

According to different functions and objectives, water environment standards can be divided into water environmental quality standards, water pollutant discharge standards, water environment basic standards, water environment monitoring and analysis method standards, water environment standard samples (standard substances) standards and water environmental sanitation standards. .

What problems exist in the current monitoring and standardization of water environment management?

Management: China's water environment management has long been in a state of "many water management." The corresponding water management departments include environmental protection departments, water conservancy departments, land resources departments, and urban construction departments. Their management responsibilities are mutually overlapping. The overlapping of functions and unclear division of work in water environment management has led to confusion in management and waste of resources in actual work.

Monitoring: After decades of development, water environment monitoring has been relatively mature in terms of analysis methods, site sampling, and quality control, etc., compared to other fields. The system is relatively complete, and environmental protection systems have formed a national control website. As the backbone of the water environment monitoring network system and water conservancy system based on more than 3,000 various types of water quality monitoring sites, covering the national rivers and lakes of the water quality monitoring network system. In spite of this, there are still some imperfections. The main problems are: lack of unified laws and regulations on water environment monitoring in the country, monitoring of organic pollutants in water does not attract sufficient attention, water quality monitoring and analysis methods are not compatible with existing water environment quality standards and sewage discharge standards, and current water quality monitoring projects are not suitable Water environment conditions, etc.

Standardization: In addition to the national and industrial standards for water environment under the supervision of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, in fact, there are other relevant departments for formulating water environment national and industrial standards, such as the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Health, and various industrial sectors such as electricity, Coal and other departments. Since the formulation of some health standards is also aimed at protecting human health and has no contradiction with environmental standards, the principles and methods for its formulation are basically the same, with no major contradiction. These two types of standards often refer to each other and are complementary and complementary. Therefore, they cannot and cannot be completely separated. In a broad sense, this part of the hygiene standard should also be a category of water environment standards, and it is not appropriate to completely exclude it from the water environment standard system. Specific to the water environment standards, the environmental protection system has a set of water environment monitoring standards, and there is also a set of water conservancy systems. The three monitoring standards of the two systems currently in existence are duplicated and complementary.

In addition, the Standardization Technical Committee on Environmental Monitoring for the preparation of water environment monitoring methods was established later (established in 2005). Second, its members are still based on environmental protection systems. Therefore, the revision of the water environment standard failed to give full play to the role of the Standardization Technical Committee. It is still the environmental protection and water conservancy systems that are working on their own, setting their own industry standards and failing to form a joint effort to formulate national standards.

Assumption of the Construction of National Water Environment Standard System

To sum up, the connotation and coverage of the current water environment standard system should be broadened, and the standards closely related to the water environment and its protection should also be incorporated into the national water environment standard system, and the coordination and cooperation between them should be straightened out. It is recommended that water environmental sanitation standards be added to the five types of standards for water environmental standards and that a “six-category three-level” water environment standard system be established. In this system, water environment quality standards, water pollutant discharge standards, and water environmental sanitation standards are mandatory standards, and other water environmental standards are recommended standards.

In addition, the national water environment standard system should also expand the scope of industry standards, not only the environmental protection industry standard (HJ), but also include the water industry (SL), urban construction industry (CJ), health industry (WS) and other water Environmental related standards.

How to effectively build a water environment standard system?

(1) Carry out the construction of the water environment standard system and the standard revision work. The environmental protection and water conservancy departments must stand at the national level and regularly carry out cross-sectoral, cross-industry, trans-regional design units, scientific research units, and manufacturing enterprises. Environmental standard academic discussion activities between environmental management departments, and extensively promote public participation, brainstorming and selecting the length of the public to further improve the scientific, feasibility, rationality, sociality, and applicability of China's water environment standards. Practicality. It is recommended that the system of water environment standards be revised and the revision work should be led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and the related water-related departments should be organized and coordinated to formulate long-term plans for water environment standards and integrate resources.

(2) Integrate regulations for water environment monitoring and integrate environmental protection systems and relevant regulations for water environment monitoring in water conservancy systems, and upgrade them to national-level water environment monitoring standards. For routine monitoring projects, such as the determination of pH, sulphate, potassium, etc., industry standards should not be established, and uniform standards and national standards should be formulated. According to the different water bodies that need to be monitored, the country can formulate different pre-treatment standards. For example, it can refer to the ISO standard and establish certain standards for sampling different water bodies. However, in terms of monitoring and analysis, it is recommended that it be integrated so that the conventional monitoring project has a unified analysis method and uses uniform standards.

(3) Strengthen bio-monitoring research and enrich bioanalytical methods in China's water environment monitoring and analysis methods. Biological monitoring has advantages over physical and chemical monitoring. For example, it can find some problems that cannot be detected by general physical and chemical monitoring, and can provide early warning of trace organic toxicants in water. At present, in the aspect of biotoxicology research, China still lags behind the developed countries in the world. It is possible to summarize China's current bio-monitoring methods and combine with some of the more advanced monitoring and analysis methods in foreign countries, and propose an analysis method that China needs to refer to and increase.

(4) The use of news media and other channels to widely publicize the importance and positive role of water environmental standards in the development of human society, safeguard human health and maintain ecological balance, and enhance public awareness of environmental standards.

(5) Revision of the environmental standards management approach. The part involving the water environment was drafted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and a number of water-related departments participated in the joint release.