An amended Law on Water and Soil Conservation adopted on Friday specifies the responsibilities local governments shoulder and the penalties that will be imposed should they fail to meet them. These will hopefully make the amended law bite when it comes to irresponsible actions causing water loss and soil erosion.

The new version increases the accountability of local government officials for water conservancy and soil erosion control and requires those local governments whose territories are vulnerable to soil erosion to set specific targets to keep soil from being washed away because of the loss of trees and grass.

Punishments will be enforced if the targets are not met. The maximum fine for those who violate the regulations has been increased from 200,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan. The law also stipulates that profits from extracting soil, sand and rocks in places vulnerable to the loss of soil and water will be confiscated once they are identified.

These measures, if carried out to the letter, should deter people from illegally mining sand and rock from environmentally fragile areas.

The total area affected by water loss and soil erosion amounts to 3.57 million square kilometers, almost one third of the country's total land, and of this, nearly 2 million sq km are in urgent need of treatment. The annual economic losses from water loss and soil erosion are estimated at about 2.25 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

Despite the efforts governments at all levels have made in the past 19 years, since the first law on water and soil conservancy was adopted in 1991, there has been much to be desired when it comes to the awareness and actions local governments have taken to conserve water and control soil erosion.

In vast stretches of mountainous areas, the ecology is fragile. Economic activities such as the exploitation of mineral resources and the mining of sand and rocks will eventually lead to natural disasters such as mudslide and floods. And they will in the end cause the deterioration of the environment and make it even more difficult for local residents to make a living.

The disastrous mudslides in Zhouqu in Northwest China's Gansu province and Gongshan in Southwest China's Yunnan province this year have sounded the alarm about soil erosion.

That explains why the central government adopted policies early this decade to restore some of the exploited land into grassland or forests. The policies have paid off and 350,000 sq km of land with serious soil erosion have been treated in the past five years.

Whether the Ministry of Water Resources, which has been designated to oversee the enforcement of this law, can do a good job, will make a difference to the overall situation of water conservancy and soil erosion control.