Clear water in the rivers and lakes is closely related with beautiful ecology and happy life. It is known from the on-site promotion meeting for the construction project of Happy Rivers and Lakes, held in Ningbo  the day before yesterday, that many projects have been constructed, including 9 happy rivers and lakes, 36 beautiful villages with high-quality water, and 43 urban-rural waterfront places.

It is a crucial year for the comprehensive construction of “Happy Rivers and Lakes” project in Ningbo this year.

A chain of happy rivers and lakes, beautiful water villages, cultural and tourism scenic spots have been built in Beilun District, including 120 water culture landscape and scenic spots. Take Meishan Bay in Beilun for example, there are rippling sea, flowing sailboats on the surface of the sea,   a large flow of tourists in beach parks and camping bases along the coast. “In the past, tourist only used to stay for about an hour when they came to Meishan Bay as they would only come to see the sea. Nowadays, people would stay much longer as Meishan Bay has become a picturesque scenery with a lot of places to enjoy. " Said Xie Yuli, General Manager of Ningbo Aishang Meishan Bay Tourism and Culture Development Co., Ltd.

In addition, it is encouraged to make investment in ecological water conservancy construction in Beilun district. More than 20 million yuan of social investment has been introduced in the renovation of the Xiaojia River system, and a number of waterfront tourism industrial belts with local characteristics have been built.

In the construction of Happy Rivers and Lakes, wisdom from multiple sources are introduced and worked together in Ningbo to protect and build water scenery. “At present, three teams including river chief liaison officers, civilian river chiefs, and volunteers have been organized to achieve multi-party collaboration, joint governance and sharing, and continuously improve the quality and governance efficiency of river and lake management, " said the Chief of Ningbo Water Resources Bureau.

Taking Yunlong Town of Yinzhou district as an example, relying on cultural carriers such as "Dragon Boat Tour on Chinese lunar calendar February 2", "Dragon Boat Folk Culture", 21 folk dragon Boat river protection teams have been established, organized within villages or communities as units, so that the folk river leaders are able to perform their duties.

In Zhenhai district, efforts have been made to revitalize its landscape and rural resources by upgrading and renovating along the riverbank. Tengshan Wetland Park and a water sightseeing tour along the mountains and rivers have been planned to gradually drive businesses such as agricultural research and learning, water street markets, outdoor camping and so on.

“Based on the overall pattern of building Happy Rivers and Lakes project named as ‘Ten Corridors, One Hundred Rivers, One Thousand Villages’, attention have been driven to promote the integrated development of water conservancy, water tourism, and sports, to continuously enhance the sense of gain, happiness, and identity of the people.” said the person in charge in Ningbo Water Resources Bureau.

More work would be done to deepen reform and innovation, exploring institutional mechanisms with local characteristics in project planning, element guarantee, integrated project approval, investment and financing, to establish new models and systems for the construction project of Happy Rivers and Lakes.