China on Friday launched a research project seeking to map out a macro environmental strategy for the country, where the environmental pollution has reached a crisis level.

Xu Kuangdi, head of the leading group of the project, said the project aims to summarize lessons and experience in environmental protection, analyze the potential environmental problems caused by economic growth, population increase, urbanization, energy consumption and transportation development, and provide macro strategy for policy makers.

Xu, also president of Chinese Academy of Engineering, said a research report is expected to come out in 2009.

China has made many pollution control programs focusing on major rivers, lakes and regions such as the Huaihe, Haihe and Liaohe rivers and Dianchi, Taihu and Chaohu lakes, and the Three Gorges areas. However, the country lacks a macro strategy on environmental protection, said Xu.

A report of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress last year has sounded a new alarm. According to the report, one third of China's water bodies are seriously polluted; one third of its land suffer from acid rain; the country's solid garbage has reached 8 billion tons, covering more than 133,000 hectares of land.

The Chinese government has set a goal of slashing the emissions of major pollutants by 10 percent during its 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010), but it recently admitted that it had failed to meet its 2006 goal of a 2 percent reduction.