By the end of 2017, Guiyang had invested 12.25 million yuan ($181 million) into surveillance and app maintenance. Surveillance currently covers 582,200 mu of forest, accounting for 10.78 percent of the total forest area.

Earlier this July, Li Tao, an engineer from the forest resource management station in Guiyang, finished his work on the 2017 second-class national forest survey. He spent a year and a half investigating and recording forest information, such as forest stock, forest varieties and hazardous fires in Guiyang.

According to Li, the app has made his work much easier. "With the digital map and GPS in the app, we can easily find the road and avoid dangerous places in the forest. Before that, we had to rely on compasses and paper maps to find our way," Li added.

Wang Jianfeng, an official of the Guiyang ecological civilization construction commission, said that the Guiyang ecological cloud platform project was launched last year.

"By 2020, the forest coverage rate in Guiyang is expected to rise to 60 percent, and the coverage rate of the built-up area is expected to rise to 47 percent," said Zhao Deming, head of Guiyang, at the Eco Forum Global Guiyang Annual Conference on July 6.

People interact with nature at Qianlingshan Park in Guiyang. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Zhao Yandi contributed to this story.