The Chinese government's policies to combat water pollution have changed from simply focusing on the polluted water bodies to managing the ecological system of entire river basins, a much more comprehensive approach, officials said.

"The coming water pollution prevention and control action plan to be released by the State Council will take into consideration the ecological conservation that involves mountains, waters, woods, lands and lakes within the river basin when treating pollution of a river," said Wang Qian, an official from the pollution prevention and control department of the Environmental Protection Ministry.

She said the central government's main attention when talking about water pollution control used to focus only on the polluted water itself, but starting from recent years, top officials have realized that to completely change the water quality of a river basin, a comprehensive management of the ecological system is a must.