The China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) Alliance for Ecological Environmental Sciences Industry (CAEESI) released a list of China’s top 10 scientific and technological advances in environmental matters in 2020 at the China Hall of Science and Technology in Beijing on June 5.

The key technology of regional coordinated prevention and control of agricultural non-point source pollution in river basins developed by a team from the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) with the joint efforts of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was on the list.

The technology was developed on the basis of the researchers’ work over the past 20 plus years done with the financial support of funds targeting water pollution control and treatment technology and agricultural projects.

The achievement focuses on the typical watershed with concentrated eutrophic lakes and prominent agricultural non-point source pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and created an agricultural non-point source pollution monitoring in the watershed.

It developed the theory of regional collaborative prevention and control, which made technological breakthroughs in integrated prevention and control of pollution that closely combines resource utilization and ecological purification.

It also innovated an agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control technology mode and realized large-scale application, contributing to the phased achievements of agricultural non-point source pollution prevention and control and the improvement of water quality of key lakes in China.

According to the organizing committee, the selection was done with the guidance of the CAST and all the entries were recommended by the members of the CAEESI and the academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and then judged by 15 academicians and experts.

The selected advances reflect the cutting-edge trends of ecological environment science and technology, lead technological innovation, and provide support for China's environmental protection and ecological civilization. The projects on the list were evaluated based on their innovation, academic value, application prospects, and social benefits.

Other projects cover the research on China's long-term low-carbon development strategy that supports the decision-making of the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, the establishment of China's sewage treatment concept plant for the future, the theory and method system of the synergy between the development of golden channel and river ecological protection, the key technology of the path optimization of the collaborative governance of air pollution and climate change, the Gross Ecosystem Production (GEP) accounting method and application, the key technology and engineering application of environmental quality automatic supervision for national surface water, the third scientific experiment of the Tibetan Plateau, the observation of the boundary layer and troposphere, the discovery of the channel and mechanism for the absorption of micro plastics by edible vegetables and crops, and the study of COVID-19 aerosol collection and monitoring.