The smoggy regions of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei — notorious for having some of the worst air pollution in the country –improved by 11 percent or more over last year, and 57 percent of all days between January and June were considered “good air days”.

On its own, Beijing’s air quality improved with 10 percent more “good air quality” days, accounting for 59 percent of of all days between January and June. Likewise, the capital’s daily average recording of PM 2.5 decreased by 18 percent from the year before.

Improved air quality also greeted the first half of 2015; but, the gains were quickly erased by high pollution levels during the last half of the year; largely due to coal burned for the annual heating season.

At the beginning of 2016, Beijing allocated $2.5 billion in funds to combat air pollution, while also implementing harsher regulations for “pollution hotspots” in and around the capital.

Although air pollution has been the main focus for a number of Chinese urban residents, other types of pollution are also gaining public awareness. The Ministry of Environmental Protection recently announced it would be implementing a Water Pollution Monitoring System throughout China, similar to the already implemented Air Quality Index (AQI).

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According to the Global Times, the Ministry of Environmental Protection plans to develop a Water Quality Index (WQI) that will assign a value to the water pollution of each city, similar to the current Air Quality Index that measures air pollution in urban centers.

The nation-wide monitoring system will follow the quality of rivers and lakes in 338 prefecture-level cities, utilizing 21 different metrics to measure metals, harmful chemicals and other pollutants.

Xia Qing, former Vice-Dean of the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, believes that the cities with the most polluted air are likely to also have the most polluted water. Xia is particularly concerned about cities in Hebei Province north of Beijing which are all part of the Haihe Basin, the most polluted area in China.

This past April, the Ministry of Water Resource said 80 percent of China’s shallow wells, used by farms, factories and rural households, were contaminated and unsafe to drink. The same month, another report said that 73 percent of water catchments providing water to 30 major Chinese cities were “severely polluted“.

In June, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said nearly two-thirds of China’s underground water, and a third of its surface water, was rated as “unsuitable for direct human contact“. A month later, Chinese scientists warned tap water in Beijing was unsafe to drink.

Concerns over water pollution in China have been raised over sightings of thousands of floating dead fish, as well as Chinese rivers that have turned color.

But China’s pollution problems don’t end there. China also suffers from massive soil pollution and contamination. The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ministry of Land and Resources has said 3.3 million hectares of arable land in China is unsuitable for growing crops.

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According to the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center, O3 reached 242 micrograms per cubic meter Sunday afternoon, a level considered hazardous to humans. Ozone, which is typically known as the part of the Earth’s atmosphere that protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation, can be dangerous to human health at high exposure levels.

Harmful to the lungs and a general irritant to the respiratory system, ozone exposure is associated with asthma, bronchitis, heart attack, other cardiopulmonary issues, and even premature death. Ozone is often described as smelling like bleach, and initial effects of exposure include headaches, burning eyes, and lung irritation. Unlike PM 2.5, air filter masks do nothing to protect against ozone gas. The best protection is to stay indoors and refrain from physical activity.

Sadly, this is something that happens every year in Beijing. Ozone levels typically begin to run high from May to August, overtaking PM 2.5 as the city’s primary pollutant. Ozone is created when oxides and nitrogen compounds from factory and vehicle emissions make contact with sunlight.

Excessive ozone, and not PM 2.5, is the reason Beijing was only able to meet national standards for air pollution less than 60 percent of the time between May and August last year, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

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So far there have been 77 days with a “good air standard”, an improvement of 20 days from a year ago. Levels of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and PM 10 also decreased by 31 percent, 14 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

Beijing authorities in March pledged to reduce PM 2.5 levels in the capital by five percent by restricting coal use and forcing heavily-polluting vehicles to stay off the road. Since January, the city has earmarked 16.5 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) to tackle air pollution. Authorities have also imposed stricter controls for air pollution “hotspots” located near the capital.

Last fall, Beijing and much of China’s north experienced severe air pollution that saw the capital issue its first-ever red alert for smog. When heating season came to a close, Beijing raised the requirements to issue a red alert, making it more difficult for a similar alert to be issued going forward.

Despite improvement in the first four months of the year, Beijing’s air pollution problems continue to plague the city. The current AQI for the city is 225, described as posing serious health risks to local residents.

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The Ministry of Water Resources posted the study on its website on Tuesday. The findings were based on 2,103 water samples taken this past January from flatland watersheds. Forty-seven percent of tested wells were found to be unfit for human consumption.

Air pollution has been widely viewed as the most prevalent type of pollution in China, mostly due to its presence in major Chinese cities. However soil and water pollution has also reached critical levels.

In 2014, the Ministry of Environmental Protection reported that nearly two-thirds of China’s underground water was rated as “unsuitable for direct human contact”. Of the 968 surface water sites analyzed by the Ministry, 37 percent were found to be unfit for human consumption. Underwater sources for water with sites classified as “poor” or “relatively poor” increased from 60 to 62 percent from 2013 to 2014.

Up to one-fifth of China’s soil is estimated to be contaminated by pollution.

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Over 10,000 runners participated in the 21-kilometer race that stretched from Happy Valley Amusement Park to Songjiang University Town. Despite an AQI air index of 137, which is high, an impressive 96 percent of runners finished the race.

Last November, a 26-year-old runner had a heart attack during the Shanghai International Marathon. The same also happened in the Guangzhou marathon the year before that, while 11 runners were taken to hospital for “fainting, heart palpitations, and chest pains.”

The situation at last September’s Beijing marathon was far worse, however. According to Western media reports, six runners had heart attacks on what was a particularly smoggy day with an AQI of between 175 and 200. Marathon participants were seen wearing protective face masks while other runners fully admitted to risking their health by breathing the air without any protection. Chinese media on the other hand only reported two heart attacks: a 52 year-old runner and a race official.

Smoggy skies certainly didn’t keep Mark Zuckerberg from going for a run. Last Friday, during a trip to the nation’s capital, the Facebook founder was photographed running through Tian’anmen Square. At the time of Zuckerberg’s run, Beijing’s air quality index was rated at a hazardous 331.

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Zuckerburg posted a photo of himself and a small group running under a grey, smoggy sky: “It’s great to be back in Beijing! I kicked off my visit with a run through Tiananmen Square, past the Forbidden City and over to the Temple of Heaven.”

Last Friday was the latest in a string of days where Beijing’s air quality index (AQI) has averaged between 200 and 300. An AQI rating over 300 is deemed “hazardous”.

If Zuckerberg was concerned for his health, he certainly didn’t show it. While Facebook continues to be officially blocked in China, Zuckerberg has not been deterred from attempting to curry favor with Chinese leaders in an effort to capture the potential of a billion new Facebook users.

Zuckerberg has been quite successful in developing a rapport with the Chinese public. Having studied the language since 2010, Zuckerberg wowed local audiences giving an interview and then a speech completely in Chinese at Tsinghua University, where he is a member of the Board.

But Zuckerberg’s attempts to gain acceptance in China have mostly been focused on China’s President. Back in December 2014, Zuckerberg advised his employees to read President Xi Jinping’s book, The Governance of China, because they needed to understand “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. And when Xi visited the USA last month, Zuckerberg asked Xi – completely in Chinese – if he was interested in naming the father to be’s son. Xi is said to have politely declined the offer.

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Located in the northern and central areas of the future megacity, the two hotspots occupy areas of Beijing as well as Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Hengshui, Langfang and Cangzhou in Hebei province. These cities have routinely been named among China’s worst for air pollution since 2013.

Chai Fahe, deputy head of the China Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, said the areas not only suffer from worse air pollution than their neighbors, but also have longer lasting smog. As a result, the hotspots have been singled out for “extra strict” regulations in order to reduce emissions and help alleviate smog.

The identification of the hotspots comes after Beijing issued its first-ever red alert for air pollution last December, and comes amid other recent developments announced to fight air pollution. At the end of January this year, Beijing announced it would spend $2.5 billion on fighting air pollution in the capital as well as making it much easier for Beijing drivers to obtain a license plate so long as they purchase an electric vehicle.

Just recently, Beijing announced it will create “ventilation corridors” that will blow away smog from the capital as well as consolidating regulations on issuing red alerts for air pollution, which also has the effect of raising the bar and making these red alerts more difficult to be issued.

Most recently, Beijing announced it will raise the number of air monitoring station in the city from 35 to 65.

Beijing has set a goal to reduce air pollution in the city to 40 percent of levels recorded in 2013 by the year 2020.

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After first revealing its plans last year, local officials announced they will “construct” a number of air corridors designed to “ventilate” the city and blow away stagnant smog from the city center.

Following the lead of other Chinese cities like Shanghai and Fuzhou, Beijing will construct five primary “ventilation corridors”, each 500 meters in width. Other secondary ventilation corridors will measure at 80 meters in width.

Wang Fei, deputy head of Beijing’s urban planning committee, said the ventilation corridors will be created by connecting the city’s parks, rivers and lakes, highways, green belts, and low building blocks.

However, “constructing” isn’t exactly the right word to use in this case. A ventilation corridor isn’t a building or structure, but the lack of many of them. It’s created by the absence of urban development like high-rises that have cropped up around the capital. The thinking goes that since space has been created in the dense urban jungle of Beijing, air will therefore have room to circulate.

Because a ventilation corridor is made of negative space, this will require the halt to building structures in the city or the demolition of existing ones, though no specific details were revealed in Saturday’s announcement. As Wang revealed, construction in these zones will be strictly controlled, and “obstacles” along the way will be gradually removed.

However, not everyone is optimistic that air corridors will solve Beijing heinous air pollution problem that saw the city issue its first-ever smog red alert last year.

Yang Baojun, chief planner of the China National City Planning Design Research Center, described the designing of wind corridors as “difficult”. Yang added that Beijing’s air pollution is due to surrounding polluting factories and dependency on burning coal, which is slated to be outlawed but continues at the present time.

Environmental protection expert Peng Yingdeng also voiced his criticism of the ventilation corridors, describing their implementation as “too perfect“. Peng warned that the difference between a plan and actually implementing it is tough when money is involved, saying, “It’s not uncommon for [needs of] the city’s ecology to give way to economic development.”

Whether or not a ventilation corridor can be successful in making winds blow in Beijing, the capital faces a unique geographical challenge that the new plans may not be able to overcome. Beijing is situated in a valley ringed with mountains, making it an ideal position to fortify yourself against an attacking enemy. However, the ringed valley also acts as a “bowl” that is effective at keeping smog lingering over the city.

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According to Beijing’s Environmental Bureau, beginning in March, a red alert for air pollution will only be called if the local air quality index (AQI) is forecast to exceed 500 for one day, 300 for two days in a row, or 200 for four consecutive days.

Currently, regulations state that a red alert can be issued if Beijing’s AQI is anticipated to exceed 200 for three consecutive days.

Beijing issued its first-ever red alert for smog last December, closely followed by a second. Under a red alert, school is cancelled, and car use is restricted by a policy which prevents half of all drivers from driving. Other emergency measures include limits on factory operations and construction.

The new regulations are designed to “standardize” pollution alerts for cities in the nearby vicinity, including Tianjin and four Hebei cities. Presently, a red alert for smog is only issued in these areas if the local AQI exceed 500 for a day. As AQI tops out at 500, air pollution in excess of 500 is simply not measurable.

Beijing recently announced plans to spend $2.5 billion to fight air pollution in the city as well as other preventative measures. The city made it much easier for drivers to obtain license plates so long as they invest in electric cars, and also announced it will invest in the creation of “ventilation corridors” to blow smog away from the city center.

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