The State Council released a circular providing guidelines for the second nation-wide investigation on pollutants, which is scheduled to be carried out on Dec 31.

The probe is aimed at strengthening supervision on pollution, enhancing environmental quality, and reinforcing pollutants-related risk control.

The investigation will mainly target SOEs, institutions and private entities that produce industrial, agricultural, residential and mobile pollutant sources, or possess concentrated pollutant treatment facilities.

Specific investigation process will be required for each category of pollutants, with three major steps involved - registration of basic information on the targeted entity, comprehensive analysis based on the actual measurement and a preliminary calculation on the production and emission of the pollutants. Further steps will be taken according to the results.

All targeted entities, especially those heavy polluting ones, should carry out self-monitoring, and report the annual results honestly. Related departments should make investigation accordingly, while encouraging social entities such as sci-tech institutions, colleges and environment consultancy agencies, and the public, to participate in such activity.

An efficient management and supervision system will be established to crack down on illegal activities.

The main probe includes a series of work such as individual survey, data collection and check and quality evaluation, which will be carried out in 2018, with preliminary work to be finished by 2017. Final results will be summarized and released in 2019.

According to the circular, expense on the investigation will be shouldered by central and local financial departments separately.