[Photo via VCG]

On April 2, the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau released the 2025 Report on the State of the Ecology and Environment in Beijing.

This report shows that Beijing's air quality continued to improve last year, with multiple indicators reaching record highs since the start of the monitoring. The annual average concentration of PM2.5 across the city stood at 27 micrograms per cubic meter in 2025, marking an 11.5-percent decrease year-on-year and representing the best-ever result on record. In addition, there were 311 days of the year with excellent/good air quality, the highest since the monitoring began. Specifically, days with excellent/good PM2.5 levels totaled 348, indicating an increase of 18 days compared with 2020. Only one day of heavy pollution occurred throughout the entire year, marking the lowest on record and a decrease of 9 days from 2020. These results show that there were almost no heavy pollution days in the last year.

Another highlight is the continuously improved aquatic ecological quality. In 2025, 105 river sections from five major water systems, with a total length of 2,551.6 kilometers, were monitored. Of these, the proportion of river sections meeting the standards of Grades I, II and III water quality reached 95.2 percent, an increase of 31.4 percent from 2020, with about 900 kilometers of rivers turning clear and pleasant. The annual average concentrations of major pollutants in surface water continued to drop, with water bodies worse than Grade V being eliminated. Meanwhile, the local aquatic ecosystem kept being improved, with more than 80 percent of the city's rivers achieving excellent/good ecological status, indicating an 8.3-percent year-on-year increase. The biodiversity of aquatic organisms continued to increase, bringing vitality to the aquatic ecosystem.

In addition, Beijing's Ecological and Environmental Quality Index (EI) reached 71.7 in 2025, up 0.42 percent year-on-year and 2.14 percent compared with 2020. The city's ecological environment was rated "excellent", as the ecosystem quality maintained steady growth.

(Source: Beijing Daily)