With clear water, verdant banks, and gently resting birds in the early autumn, the Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve in Dongying, east China’s Shandong Province becomes a home for rare bird species.

Dongying is located at the estuary of the Yellow River. In recent years, Dongying has enacted and revised 6 ecological protection laws and regulations, and launched the Yellow River Ecological Corridor Plan to advance comprehensive environmental management in the estuary area. So far, Dongying has relocated 19 “fangtai villages” (villages built on raised platforms to avoid floods), built new communities with centralized sewage treatment facilities, and removed 300 oil-related facilities within protected areas and completed ecological restoration work, while constructing a 490,000 mu (32,667 hectares) wetland corridor. After purification by constructed wetlands, the water quality of farmland drainage has improved from Grade V to Grade III. The latest data show that the water quality of the main stream of the Yellow River in Shandong section has maintained Grade II for 4 consecutive years.

By implementing biodiversity conservation and restoration projects in the Yellow River Delta wetlands, Dongying has restored 72,500 mu (4,833 hectares) of wetlands, 47,000 mu (3,133 hectares) of saline-alkali land, and seagrass beds. Shandong Province, where Dongying City is located, will further implement measures such as ecological protection and water quality improvement in the Yellow River Basin, and soil pollution prevention and control through the construction of the Yellow River Estuary National Park this year, so as to further advance the ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin.