In terms of air quality, 59.1 percent of the 325 prefecture-level cities failed to meet the new air quality standards, and 76.1 percent of the 113 key environmental protection cities failed to meet the standards. More than 30 percent of rivers and more than 50 percent of groundwater are substandard.

Among the 4,929 groundwater monitoring points in 198 cities, the proportion of monitoring points for good-good-good water quality was 42.7 percent, and that for poor-extremely poor water quality was 57.3 percent. The water environment problem is more serious in rural areas. Only 77.2 percent of the drinking water sources in the pilot villages and only 70.3 percent of the groundwater drinking water sources meet the standard. Only 64.7 percent of surface water is up to standard.