The extent of China's soil pollution, long guarded as a state secret, was laid out in an official report that confirmed deep-seated fears about contaminated farmland and the viability of the country's food supply.
中国官方报告公布了一向被视为国家机密的中国土壤污染数据，人们对中国耕地污染以及食品供应的担忧得到印证。Nearly one-fifth of the country's arable land is polluted, officials said in the report, shedding unexpected light on the scale of the problem--a legacy of China's three decades of breakneck economic growth and industrial expansion.
中国富翁的农产品情结报告称，中国有近五分之一的耕地受到污染。报告出人意料的揭示了土壤污染问题的严重程度，这个问题是中国长达30年的经济高速增长和工业扩张带来的一个后果。'The national soil situation overall does not offer cause for optimism,' said the report. 'In some areas, soil pollution is relatively severe. The condition of arable land is troubling, with the problem of pollution from industry and mining particularly worrisome.'
报告称，全国土壤环境状况总体不容乐观。报告称，部分地区土壤污染较重，耕地土壤环境质量堪忧，工矿业废弃地土壤环境问题突出。
While China's problems with air pollution are well-documented, environmentalists have warned about the effects of less-visible contamination of the country's land.
此项为期七年的调查实际调查面积为630万平方公里。报告发现，中国约有16%的土壤和19%的耕地受到不同程度的污染。报告称，污染主要来自重金属等无机来源。中国国土面积为960万平方公里。'Air pollution is definitely more visible and present, but soil is the last environmental media where pollutants end up,' said Wu Yixiu, head of Greenpeace's East Asia toxins campaign. Heavy metal particles in the air and water seep into the land, then 'get into the food and affect everybody,' she added.
报告显示，中国土壤中的主要无机污染物为镉、镍、砷这三种重金属。镉和砷是采矿业的副产品，众所周知它们可导致慢性病。The report, based on a seven-year survey covering 2.4 million square miles, found that about 16% of the country's soil and 19% of its arable land was polluted to one degree or another. The vast majority of the pollution came from inorganic sources such as heavy metals, it said. China's total land area is 3.7 million square miles.
报告显示，中国有近3%的耕地要么属于中度污染，要么属于重度污染。报告没有对各种程度的污染加以界定。报告称，长江三角洲、珠江三角洲和东北老工业基地的土壤污染问题较为突出。The most common inorganic pollutants found in China's soil were the heavy metals cadmium, nickel and arsenic, according to Thursday's report. Cadmium and arsenic, both known to cause chronic health problems, are byproducts of mining.
由于耕地面积缺乏，耕地污染问题对于中国来说尤为令人担忧。根据最近一次全国土地调查，截至2012年年末，中国耕地总面积为3.34亿英亩（合20.27亿亩），较政府设定的“红线”（指养活中国人口所需的耕地面积）多出3,700万英亩左右。Nearly 3% of arable land in China was found to be either moderately or seriously polluted, the report said, without defining what those levels of contamination mean. Pollution was particularly severe in eastern China's Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta in the south and old industrial zones in the northeast, it said.
中国国土资源部去年12月公布，已经有824万英亩耕地已经不适于进行农业种植。环保人士们称，余下的耕地中大多数属于低质或中质水平，几十年来大规模使用化肥和杀虫剂使得这些土地丧失了生产能力。Pollution of farmland is of particular concern in China because of how little of it has. According to the most recent national land survey, China had 334 million acres of arable land at the end of 2012, roughly 37 million acres above the government's 'red line' for the amount of farmland necessary to feed the country's population.
这么多的污染土壤意味着中国未来可能需要开始进口更多食物。美国农业部经济研究所(Economic Research Service)的经济学家盖尔(Fred Gale)说，长期而言，中国需要放松自然资源基础承受的压力，并进口更多食物。他说，农业受到工业污染的影响，但同时农业自身也造成了许多污染，他这里指的是中国肉类需求增加所造成的浪费和生态环境破坏。Already, some 8.24 million acres of arable land has become unfit for farming, China's Ministry of Land and Resources disclosed in December. Environmentalists say the majority of the remaining land is of poor or moderate quality, having been stripped of its productivity by decades of heavy fertilizer and pesticide use.
2013年4月，几批来自中国主要大米出产省份湖南的大米中被发现含有大量镉。这一发现引发了外界对耕地的担忧，并一度使得湖南大米价格下跌达14%。湖南同时也是中国前五大铜、铅等有色金属的生产地区。So much polluted soil means China will likely have to begin importing more food. 'China will need to ease pressure on its natural resource base and import more of its food over the long-term,' said Fred Gale, an economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. 'Agriculture is impacted by industrial pollution but also creates a lot of pollution itself,' he said, citing waste and ecological damage caused by China's growing taste for meat.
普遍接受的标准是，每公斤大米可含镉量为0.4毫克，若长期食用超过这一标准的大米会导致骨骼疼痛，并对肝肾造成损伤。2013年检测的几批湖南大米样本显示镉量均超标。In April 2013, the discovery of unusually high quantities of cadmium in batches of rice grown in Hunan--the country's top rice-producing region, as well as a top-five producer of nonferrous metals like copper and lead--set off worries about farmland and sent prices for Hunan rice tumbling by as much as 14%.
而就在湖南大米被检测出含镉量超标之前不久，环境保护部拒绝了一位北京律师要求公布土壤污染调查结果的请求。该部门当时说，相关数据涉及国家机密，因此不能够公布。Consuming cadmium in excess of the widely accepted standard of 0.4 milligrams per kilogram of rice over a long period can cause crippling pain the bones and liver and kidney damage. Several samples of the Hunan rice tested in 2013 showed levels of cadmium above that standard.
Zuma Press青海省，农民正在给耕地松土。不过中国政府已经开始加强重视环境恶化带来的风险。The cadmium disclosure came shortly after the Ministry of Environmental Protection rejected a request filed by a Beijing-based lawyer to release the results of the soil pollution survey. The ministry said at the time the data couldn't be released because it was a state secret.
去年12月，中国宣布将抛弃以往以GDP为核心的政府官员考核体系，代之以一套涵盖更广泛的标准，其中就包括环境保护。在网络上发起呼吁提高空气质量信息透明度的运动三年后，中国大多数大城市都每小时发布空气污染水平数据。去年7月，环境保护部发布了相关规定，要求中国所有省份建立网络平台，发布主要企业的实时污染数据。Authorities have started to give more weight to the risks of environmental degradation.
力推公开土壤污染信息的律师董正伟说，这是让公民在环境保护问题上享有知情权的第一步。他还补充说，这一信息对公众来说已经来晚了，不过总比没有强。In December, the Communist Party announced it would scrap its previous gross domestic product-driven performance evaluation system and replace it with one that would judge officials according to a wider variety of criteria, including environmental protection. Three years after an online campaign calling for more accurate information about air quality, most major cities in China now publish hourly data on air pollution levels. In July, the environmental ministry issued regulations requiring all Chinese provinces to establish an online platform for reporting pollution produced by major companies.
广东省生态环境与土壤研究所土壤治理专家陈能场说，这打破了土壤污染普查结果是国家机密的观念，并提供了更多信息。但他也称，政府发布这份数据只是做个姿态，并未提供确切的解决方案。'This is a primary step for citizens' right to know about the environmental protection issue,' said Dong Zhengwei, the lawyer who pushed for release of the results. He added, 'this information is late for the public, but it's still better than nothing.'
土壤修复是使遭受污染的土壤恢复正常功能的技术措施，这一过程对技术要求很高，而且需要几十年的时间。在不同的条件下，重金属的反应也不同，这就令确定污染源变得困难，要把重金属从土壤中除去，可能需要把土地休耕数年。Chen Nengchang, a soil remediation expert with the Guangdong Institute of Environmental and Soil Sciences, said the report 'clears away the image of soil pollution as a state secret and provides more information.' But he added that the release is 'a gesture' that did little to provide solutions.
中国在最新的五年规划中提出，将投入人民币300亿元用于土壤修复和污染预防，不过有专家表示，相关成本要比这个数目多得多。