China will build a comprehensive monitoring system by 2020 to implement its ecological "red line" strategy and supervise activities inside the nature reserves, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said on February 20.

This will include a space-ground ecological observation system and a ecological security monitoring system linked up to big data and the Internet, according to the ministry.

China will push forward ecological protection during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), as the country still faces a severe condition in this field, said Cheng Lifeng, an official with the MEP.

From this year, authorities will conduct remote sensing monitoring on all national-level nature reserves twice a year, the ministry said, adding that it will build a space-ground observation system with satellite remote sensing technology to monitor ecological changes.

China has 2,740 nature reserves that cover 1.42 million square kilometers of land, 14.8 percent of the country's land territory, said Cheng.

Among them, 446 are national-level reserves, covering 970,000 square kilometers.

China's central authorities issued guidelines earlier this month on an ecological "red line" strategy that will make certain regions protected. The zones will be clearly defined by the end of 2020.

(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2017)