BEIJING - The water quality of the Yellow River has seen significant improvement in recent years, China's top environment official said Sunday.

The proportion of water with quality higher than third-class in the country's second-longest river grew 8.7 percent year on year in 2018, while that of fifth-class water dropped 3.7 percent, said Li Ganjie, the country's ecology and environment minister, at a news conference.

Li attributed the improvement to targeted supervision, effective ecological protection and restoration, water pollution prevention and strict market access.

Given the fragile ecological environment along the river, the country should make more efforts to boost ecological protection and high-quality development, Li said.

While strengthening overall planning, the country will facilitate categorized ecological protection and restoration according to regional differences, Li added.