China's environmental situation has been described as "grim" in an annual update on the country's environment released this week. <br /><br />The update by China's Ministry of Environmental Protection said that overall pollution problems were serious last year and reporting on the update, the state-controlled newspaper China Daily said there has been a "marked deterioration in China's air, water and land quality". <br /><br />The 2012 Environmental Conditions Report addressed water and air pollution, the two types of pollution that have received the most attention over recent months. The report found that 57.3% of the groundwater in 198 cities in 2012 was "bad" or "extremely bad", while more than 30% of the country's major rivers were "polluted" or "seriously polluted".
