Thanks to the improved water quality, Rao Min, a 31-year-old resident of the city, recently purchased an apartment near the river with the intent of inviting his parents to live there.

The change in Luzhou is just one of the efforts by the central government to improve the water quality in the Yangtze.

In May 2016, what was then the Ministry of Environmental Protection started a national campaign to protect sources of drinking water in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, which is designed to benefit more than 500 million people in two municipalities and nine provinces.

The Luzhou section of the river is Sichuan's longest at 136 kilometers. It accounts for two-thirds of the river's length in Sichuan.