China's State Council, or Cabinet, on January 28 published a circular on soil pollution, setting out a plan to contain the increasingly severe problem by 2015.

The circular ordered a thorough survey into soil conditions by 2015 and a system to be established to rigorously protect arable land and land where drinking water originates.

It proposed building a soil environment monitoring network to cover 60 percent of all arable land and land of drinking water sources that serve over 500,000 people, so that regular surveillance will be possible for these regions.

Rigorous controls on newly polluted soil were also demanded by the State Council, which set soil protection priorities as nipping in the bud the environmental risks accompanying soil pollution, and treating contaminated land.

Heavy metal pollution alone results in the loss of 10 million tons of grain and the contamination of another 12 million tons annually, incurring 20 billion yuan ($3.17 billion) in direct economic losses each year, the Ministry of Land and Resources estimated.