The environmental protection industry, driven by policies, regulations, and supervision, has shown a rapid development trend in the domestic market, especially as we enter the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, amidst growing environmental demands.
Environmental monitoring, as a branch of the environmental protection industry, holds a market potential of nearly 100 billion yuan. The environmental monitoring industry chain mainly consists of upstream hardware, software, and testing reagents; midstream monitoring equipment and systems; and downstream equipment maintenance and operations. With the implementation of policies promoting the socialization of environmental monitoring services, the market for environmental monitoring will gradually open up to the public, and industry companies will shift from selling monitoring equipment to providing environmental monitoring services.
The domestic environmental monitoring market policy situation is analyzed as follows.
Overall, on February 5, 2015, the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Socialization of Environmental Monitoring Services," proposing to liberalize the service-oriented monitoring market and orderly open up the public welfare and supervisory monitoring fields. On August 12 of the same year, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Plan for the Construction of the Ecological Environment Monitoring Network," requiring that by 2020, the national ecological environment monitoring network should basically achieve comprehensive coverage of environmental quality, key pollution sources, and ecological conditions.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection issued eight national environmental protection standards, including "Determination of Atrazine in Water Quality by Gas Chromatography" and "Determination of Volatile Organic Compounds in Environmental Air by Canister Sampling/Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry" (HJ759-2015), to drive the development of the environmental monitoring industry.
Air Monitoring
In 2012, the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a new edition of the "Air Quality Standard," which added PM2.5 and ozone as two new monitoring indicators, bringing the total number of air monitoring indicators to six. This plan proposes the establishment of 1,326 monitoring sites across the country by the end of 2015, primarily covering 381 prefectural-level cities. Compared to international targets, the construction goals for environmental monitoring stations in various provinces significantly exceed those planned by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
Beijing has proposed to establish a "4+1" multifunctional atmospheric environmental quality monitoring network system, consisting of four sub-networks and one mobile system, based on the existing environmental air monitoring network. It is expected that the number of air monitoring stations in Beijing will increase by about double, reaching 60 to 70 stations this year.
Excluding Beijing, Guangzhou also added 15 new air quality monitoring stations in January this year. Additionally, cities like Foshan and Shaoxing have proposed increasing the number of urban air monitoring stations at the beginning of this year. As a result, the number of air monitoring stations may double over the next two years.
Online Air Pollution Source Monitoring
The "Air Pollutant Emission Standards for Thermal Power Plants," released at the end of 2011, mandates stricter emission standards for existing power plants starting July 1, 2014. Desulfurization retrofits began early on and have largely been completed, accompanied by the necessary monitoring equipment. Following the power sector, the steel and cement industries have gradually become key areas for air pollution control. Between 2011 and 2012, the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued relevant laws and regulations such as the "Pollution Prevention Technology Policy for the Steel Industry," "Pollution Prevention Technology Policy for the Cement Industry," and "Emission Standards for the Cement Industry." These policies propose that steel companies should install online monitoring devices for major pollutants like COD, SO2, and heavy metals, and significantly reduced the emission limits for SO2 and NOx in the cement industry.
Additionally, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has concurrently issued over 20 industry emission standards related to air quality. In addition to the conventional indicators such as particulate matter, SO2, NOx, ammonia, and smoke opacity, a series of heavy metals and volatile organic compounds have also been included.
Water Quality Monitoring
Water quality monitoring, although starting later than air quality monitoring, has seen rapid development in recent years, especially with the introduction of the "Water Ten Measures" in April 2015, which provided a strong impetus for the water quality monitoring market.
In the Water Ten Plan announced by various provinces and cities, Beijing and Jiangsu Province, among others, have required the installation of automatic online monitoring devices in industrial park wastewater treatment facilities by the end of 2016. Other provinces and cities have set a deadline of 2017 for the same installation. Tianjin, which is relatively later, aims to have 95% of enterprises covering the total wastewater discharge in the city equipped with pollution source online monitoring systems by the end of 2020.
In the area of surface water quality monitoring, the "Water Ten Plan" in various regions sets clear targets. Most provinces and cities require that by 2017, the proportion of drinking water sources with excellent water quality be maintained at 100%, and water quality monitoring data be publicly disclosed to society on a quarterly basis; the environmental water quality of surface water reaches above 80%; black and臭 water bodies are all controlled within 10%; and the surface water quality monitoring market is expected to boom.
Previously, documents such as the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Environmental Protection," the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Construction of Urban Sewage Treatment and Reuse Facilities in China," the "Sanitary Standard for Drinking Water GB5749-2006," the "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Plan for the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River (2011-2015)," and the "Key River Basin Water Pollution Prevention and Control Plan" also set corresponding targets for water environment monitoring.
Heavy Metal and VOCs Monitoring
In 2010, the State Council issued the "Notice on Guiding the Implementation of Joint Prevention and Control of Air Pollution and Improvement of Regional Air Quality," listing VOCs as a key pollutant for joint prevention and control of air pollution. In April 2013, Beijing's 2013 Clean Air Action Plan included "volatile organic compounds" among the targets for emission reduction and control. In June 2013, the Ministry of Environmental Protection released the "Technical Policy for the Prevention and Control of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)," further clarifying the methods and technologies for VOCs treatment. The "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Ecological Environment Protection in Hebei Province" mentions "To effectively control particulate matter and VOCs pollution, deepen the control of particulate matter pollution, Hebei will widely promote bag filters and electric-bag composite dust collectors in the thermal power industry, and at the same time, actively promote dust control on roads and construction sites to prevent secondary pollution."
In the area of heavy metal monitoring, the Ministry of Environmental Protection issued the "Comprehensive Implementation Plan for the Rectification of Heavy Metal Pollution" and the "National Urban Drinking Water Source Environmental Protection Plan (2008-2020)" in 2009. The "Plan" includes significant changes regarding the rectification of lead smelting enterprises, with stricter permitted discharge standards for industrial wastewater in the heavy metal and non-ferrous metal processing industries compared to previous levels.
