Satellite remote sensing helps to combat illegal water invasions

High-resolution satellite remote sensing has played a pivotal role in China's water body management, helping identify most illegal invasions into water courses in 2024, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.

The ministry applied satellite remote sensing images of sub-meter level to help crack down on illegal invasion into water courses for the first time in 2024, said Chen Dongming, head of the ministry's Department of River and Lake Management, at a news conference on Wednesday.

Last year, 42,000 illegal invasion cases were addressed, 60 percent of which were identified by remote sensing, he added.

Artificial intelligence-based image recognition technology has also been increasingly applied in water body management as local water resources management authorities strive to beef up intelligent supervision, he stated.

In Hebei province, a surveillance network comprising 10,213 AI cameras, each with a monitoring range of 4 kilometers, has been established. This network effectively monitors 1,386 rivers and 23 lakes within the province.

The country has managed to rule out 280,000 cases concerning illegal invasion into water courses since 2018, resulting in "a historic transformation in the environment of rivers, lakes and reservoirs", he noted.