BEIJING, April 27 -- China has made solid progress in curbing the discharging of polluted water into the Yellow River and the dumping of wastes in the riverbed over the past few years, an official said Thursday.

The progress is attributed to an array of outfall inspections along the second-longest river in the country since 2020, with five provincial-level regions involved, said Liu Youbin, spokesperson for the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, at a press conference.

To date, the ministry has detected more than 17,000 outfalls in total during inspections covering a distance of 12,000-plus km, Liu said.

Many issues found during the inspections were resolved after local governments were informed of and urged to take actions by the ministry, the spokesperson said.

It was also announced at the press conference that the vegetation coverage of the Yellow River basin has seen a "remarkable expansion" over the past two decades, as per data from remote-sensing investigations.

The Yellow River is dubbed a "mother river" in China. Continued efforts have gone into ecological protection along the river in recent years, with the Yellow River Protection Law coming into effect on April 1, 2023.