The Ministry of Ecology and Environment is set to take charge of the monitoring and supervision of surface water quality to provide accurate information for water pollution control and ensure data authenticity, the Legal Daily reported.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment is inaugurated in Beijing, April 16, 2018.(Photo: China News Service)

Local governments, which previously had responsibility for water quality monitoring, were required to build 2,050 national-level water monitoring stations along China's 10 major rivers and hand them over to the ministry by the end of July, the report said. The move will help the ministry know and handle the condition of water quality in the country.

Liu Zhiquan, an official with the monitoring department of the ministry, told the Legal Daily that the monitoring sites will be distributed on the main streams or key tributaries of the rivers, which include the Yellow River, the Yangtze River and the Pearl River, and will monitor the water quality of 997 rivers and streams and 112 lakes and reservoirs.

Of the 2,050 sites, 959 will be newly built and 530 are pre-existing sites that will be updated with new equipment and systems. The water samples will be automatically collected six times daily.

The ministry will cooperate with third party institutions to collect and test samples, and release annual monitoring reports, the report said.