BEIJING — China will make environmental monitoring data more objective and accurate with rules against data manipulation.

By 2020, China will have a system in place that ensures the quality of environmental data and management mechanisms, according to the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council on Sept 21.

Some officials have interfered with data, while data reported by different monitoring agencies often has different standards, leading to poor data quality, the document said.

By clarifying responsibilities and unifying standards, the independence of environmental monitoring agencies and the authenticity of data will be ensured.

Officials who manipulate or fake data will be punished, while individuals in monitoring agencies will be responsible for the accuracy of data they collect or analyze.

In another attempt to protect the environment, an alert system to monitor regional environmental and resource capacity conditions was announced on Sept 20.

Regions with serious environmental and resource capacity overloading will not be allowed to start new projects.