Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
ability to absorb carbon dioxide.
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Shanghai's historical golden age and rai-
son d'être is its commercialism, facilitated, of course, by its contact with riv-
ers and the seas.
h is water, a source of wealth, is now a symbol of the city's pollution and
its potential fl ooding in the face of global climate change. Water quality in
local rivers is a major problem. h e Huangpu River is the source of most of
the city's water supplies and also the location of a huge port, while function-
ing as a water transportation system and a sink for much of the city's indus-
trial discharge. Eighty percent of the delta landform on which the munici-
pality is located is drained by the Huangpu River catchment, a complex
interlocking network of canals, drains, minor watercourses, and rivers.
Groundwater is generally only about a meter below the surface.
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Most water
bodies in Shanghai are moderately to very severely polluted, contaminated
by toxic substances such as phenol, cyanide, mercury, arsenic, and chro-
mium.
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Some describe the Huangpu River as “a chemical cocktail” of raw
sewage, toxic urban wastes, and huge amounts of industrial discharges.
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Industrial discharges, domestic sewage, and non-point-source pollution are
the three main sources of wastewater discharges and polluted e< uents. In
addition, livestock waste and agricultural runoff are a major problem.
Recently, the city has invested heavily in water improvement. h ere are still
major problems, though, such as the leakage of phenol (an acid used to make
detergents) from a cargo ship and, most recently, the discovery of thousands
of pig carcasses in Shanghai's drinking water, dumped by pig farmers
upstream.
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Shanghai also has major air-quality problems, even though its air is not as
bad as Beijing's. Concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO
2
), total suspended par-
ticulates (TSP), and lead are far above healthy levels in the urban districts.
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h ese levels of particulate air pollution from energy and industrial processes in
Shanghai were, about a decade ago, among the highest in the world. Major
industrial sources (power plants, large iron and steel works, and chemical
