The evaluation results show that among the 77 participating cities, Suzhou, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Tongling, Jiaxing, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao and Xuzhou are in the top 10; Tangshan, Xuchang, Luohe, Shijiazhuang, Huaian, Xining, Suqian, Quanzhou, Sanmenxia and Zhenjiang are in the bottom 10. The new cities included in the evaluation performed poorly overall, showing an obvious long-tail effect, resulting in 77 cities having a lower average score in the third quarter than the average score of 39 cities in the second quarter.

In the second quarter of 2022, among 361 cities (including provincial counties), there were 234 cities with excellent CWEI scores, accounting for 64.8%, 88 cities with average grades, accounting for 24.4%, and 39 cities with poor and poor grades, accounting for 10.8%, with a significant year-on-year improvement and a decline from the previous year.

The evaluation results show that among the 39 participating cities, Suzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Qingdao, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Beijing, Yichang and Haikou are in the top 10; while Wenzhou, Tianjin, Jiujiang, Harbin, Jinan, Wuhan, Changchun, Quanzhou, Shijiazhuang and Tangshan rank in the bottom 10. The overall performance of the newly included cities in the evaluation was average, resulting in the average score of 39 cities in the second quarter being slightly lower than the average score of 30 cities in the first quarter.

Among the 30 participating cities, cities in East and South China continue to outperform other regional cities in general. The 22 cities that participated in last year's year-end evaluation generally improved their scores in the first quarter of this year, with Suzhou remaining in first place with 93.1 points, Harbin, Jinan, Dongying and Wuhan still scoring below 10 points and ranking at the bottom, and Zhengzhou moving up more in the ranking. Among the 8 new cities included in the evaluation, 4 key cities are generally located in the upper middle level, Shanghai is ranked second, 4 non-key cities started late in the development of policies and regulations, community waste classification and implementation of waste classification collection and transportation system still has a large gap, the score is behind.

In the first quarter of 2022, among 358 cities (including the provincial counties), there were 257 cities with excellent CWEI rating, accounting for 71.8%, 71 cities with average rating, accounting for 19.8%, and 30 cities with poor and poor rating, accounting for 8.4%.

The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) continues to focus on plastics governance process, promoting plastic reduction and plastic recycling mechanisms through projects such as Green Supply Chain and Waste Sorting Map. Recently invited by Beijing News Radio program "News Daily Talk” ("XinWenTianTianTan"), IPE Director Ma Jun explained about source reduction of single-use plastic products mentioned in the "Beijing Action Plan for Plastic Pollution Control 2022”, plastic treatment of e-commerce express package, plastic waste recycling model and biodegradable plastic alternatives.

Since 2016, IPE has been collecting water quality data released by governments across China, organizing and classifying them, and displaying them on the Blue Map website and app. IPE developed the City Water Environment Index (CWEI) in 2019, which compares surface water conditions in different cities across China. On the World Water Day of 2022, Blue Map launches its fourth quarterly report for CWEI evaluation for 2021. This report compares the surface water quality in 361 cities across the country in the fourth quarter of 2022, as well as changes in water quality over the eight quarters since 2020.