China will go all out to check ever worsening damage to offshore ecology caused mainly by the discharge of land-borne pollutants this year, according to a top Chinese marine official.

The pledge was made by Sun Zhihui, director of the State Oceanic administration (SOA), while addressing an ongoing annual conference held here in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province.

Industry experts blame people's poor awareness of the harm done to marine ecology by pollutants discharged by coastal cities.

Many cities discharge raw sewage into offshore waters without treatment, said Sun.

Sun promised that his organization would tighten monitor of the ecology of China's offshore waters and make experiments with restoring marine ecology through establishing seven special protective zones this year, including two marine nature reserves.

SOA will be more strict with approving procedures to ban new projects that fall short of standards for aspects such as environmental assessment, protection and energy efficiency from getting started. In the past, the rules have been waived on some projects.

All builders of marine construction projects must present detail of their gross control targets for sulphur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand (OCD), said Sun.

SOA will vigorously carry out other ecological restoration projects by growing mangrove, developing sea grass patches and seaside wetlands at coastal sections ranging from Yellow River estuary-Laizhou Bay, Xiamen bay, Minjiang estuary, to the areas off the eastern coast of Hainan Island.

China has a coastline of 18,000 km.