In the 2014 No. 1 Document, the central government put its top priorities as “improving rural environment and maintaining food security”. Both are tightly linked with soil pollution. The government is currently drafting the “Soil Environmental Protection Law”, and we expect the legislation process to be accelerated.

Meanwhile, the MEP has announced on 3 March 2014 that the Soil Pollution Prevention & Remediation Action Plan will be issued by the end of this year, with five key tasks including 1) to give priority to protect arable lands, 2) pollution sources control, 3) risk management of contaminated sites, 4) pilot sites for soil remediation, and 5) to strengthen monitoring and management of the soil environment.

Furthermore, until now the following national standards on soil pollution testing methods have been published last year, which help to strengthen the monitoring of soil environmental quality (see the full list of soil environment related standards here (Chinese only)):

• Soil and sediment-Determination of volatile organic compounds-Headspace-gas chromatography/mass method (HJ 642—2013) (published on 21 January 2013 and put in force on 1 July 2013)
• Soil – Determination of exchangeable acidity by potassium chloride extraction – Titration method (HJ 649-2013)  (published on 3 June 2013 and put in force on 1 September 2013)
  
• Soil and sediment Determination of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) Isotope dilution HRGC-LRMS (HJ 650-2013)  (published on 3 June 2013 and put in force on 1 September 2013)
  
• Determination of organic carbon – Combustion oxidation- titration method (HJ 658-2013) (published on 16 August 2013 and put in force on 1 September 2013)
• Soil and sedimen — Determination of mercury, arsenic, selenium, bismuth, antimony — Microwave dissolution/Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry (HJ 680-2013) (published on 21 November 2013 and put in force on 1 February 2014)
• Soil and sediment-Determination of acrolein, acrylonitrile, acetonitrile Headspace-Gas chromatography method (HJ 679-2013) (published on 21 November 2013 and put in force on 1 February 2014)