The river chief system has been established in all 31 provincial¹ regions on the Chinese mainland half a year earlier than planned, with 300,000 officials appointed as chiefs to protect water bodies, said E Jingping, minister of water resources, at a news conference last Tuesday.

上周二，水利部部长鄂竟平在新闻发布会上表示，内地31个省级地区提前半年全面建立河长制，共明确省、市、县、乡四级河长30万名，以推动水体保护。

He also said 402 of the river chiefs are provincial level officials and 59 of them are heads of their provinces.

他还指出，其中省级领导担任河长的有402人，59人是省区市的党政主要负责人。

All but two of the provincial regions have also appointed 760,000 river chiefs at the village level.

除了两个省区市，其余各省区市还设立了超过76万名的村级河长。

China first appointed local government officials as river chiefs in 2007 to address the pollution woes² of a blue algae³ outbreak in Taihu Lake, Jiangsu province.

2007年，江苏太湖为解决蓝藻大规模爆发引发的污染难题，任命当地政府官员为河长，在全国首创河长制。

The practice was later adopted in several regions with rich water resources to ensure strong enforcement of environmental policies and enhanced coordination⁴ of different government bodies.

这一做法后来在几个拥有丰富水资源的地区被采用，以确保强有力地执行环境政策，并加强不同政府机构的协调。

In December 2016, the central government released a document ordering the system, which is linked to the performance evaluations⁵ of top officials, to be established nationwide by the end of 2018.

2016年12月，中央政府发布了一份文件，要求在2018年底前，在全国范围内建立起与政府高层官员的绩效评估有关的系统。

While government officials will be hired as river chiefs at provincial, prefecture, county and township levels, heads of provincial regions will be general chiefs that are responsible for all rivers and lakes in their region, according to the document.

该文件指出，尽管有被任命为省、区、县和乡级的河长的政府官员，但各省的主要负责人将担任本地区所有河流和湖泊的总河长。