Over the past little while we’ve had the chance to keep a bit of an eye on what China was doing environmentally. Without a doubt, it’s hard for China to show much progress, considering just how far back they’ve fallen over the past decades. But, as we’ve discussed, the blame cannot be entirely placed at their feet. If it weren’t for the consumer driven, capitalist march of the western world, than China’s industrial center would not be so hard put.

Nevertheless, it stands that China is one of the top 3 polluters in the world. And, a joint study between the Swiss and Chinese has focused on what is almost termed the world’s most polluted river, the Yangtze River.

The Yangtze River or Chang Jiang is the longest river within Asia, and the third longest across the entirety of the planet. Measuring in at 6,300 kilometre-long (3,915 mile-long), the results of the joint water survey were “less alarming than expected.”

What does this mean?

“The ecosystem of the Yangtze can be saved if China intensifies its activities in water protection now,” said survey organiser August Pfluger.

That’s the basic drift of what the survey found. While it does not negate the idea that the Yangtze is heavily polluted, the survey found that there was time to save it. And, with China’s booming economy only exacerbating the problem, the scientists urged China to act quickly.

The Yangtze River suffers from multiple inputs of waste. Some 400 million people live along the banks, and dump an estimated 25 billion tonnes of waste annually. Agriculture doesn’t help either, with an “excessive amount” running off in to the river, doubling its nitrogen concentration over the past 20 years.

Yet “the water quality of the Yangtze is comparable to that of other large rivers in the world,” said geochemist Beat Mueller, the former Swiss head of the joint expedition.

In addition, surprisingly, the levels of toxic heavy metal concentration found within are two to eight times less than those found 30 years ago in the River Rhine. One of Europe’s largest rivers, the Rhine does however run through the industrial regions of Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland.

What keeps the Yangtze relatively clean however, is what causes problems at the mouth of the river, in the East China Sea; its heavy flow of water. A quick look on Google Maps and you can see what the problem is by the blue-green coloring. The excess 1,500 tonnes of nitrogen and 4.6 tonnes of arsenic that are pushed along by the current feed the growth of blue-green algae, and subsequently rob the water of oxygen, causing dead zones.

There’s good and bad news in here. The bad news, we knew already; that the Yangtze was not a healthy river and did great damage to the people, flora and fauna that it connects with. The good news though, and it is news that we did not expect, is that it is possible to fix it if action is taken quickly.

Let us hope that that action can be taken as quickly as is necessary.

AFP via PhysOrg - Massive pollution in Yangtze river can be reversed: scientists