Currently, only about half of wastewater generated in the basin's urban areas has been properly disposed of, and only 10 percent of reclaimed water is reused, Lian said.

People's excessive exploitation of water resources still occurs frequently in the basin. "There are outstanding conflicts between the carrying capacity of local resources and the environment vis-a-vis socioeconomic development," he said.

Last year, 73 percent of water in the monitored sections in the basin was classified at Grade III or above in the country's five-tier water quality system, up by 16.7 percent from 2015 levels. Meanwhile, 8.8 percent of the water was worse than Grade V, the poorest quality, down by 8.2 percent from 2015, Lian said.