During the first phase, people sought quick economic returns by ignoring environmental protection. In the second phase, they began to realize the importance of green development, but still pursued high economic growth, leading to contradictions between achieving high economic growth while maintaining and improving the environment.

It was only during the third phase that people finally realized that green development also produced true "gold", and it is only through green development that humans and nature can coexist harmoniously.

"Xi's Two Mountains theory definitely solved the long-term puzzle and unlocked the development path for Huzhou," said Qian Sanxiong, the city's mayor

Since then, Huzhou has trodden the path of sustainable, green development using measures and efforts from the government and residents.

Clearer waters

In Zhushan, a village in Huzhou's Changxing county, Zhou Guoqin was washing clothes in the Zhushan River near her home. She said the water is now so clean that the villagers all wash their rice, vegetables and fruits in the river.

"The water in the river now is definitely clear and safe. I usually cook my rice directly after washing it here," she said.

The improved quality of the river water has been made possible thanks to the implementation of pollution control measures in villages across Huzhou during the past 10 years.

All the villages are now equipped with facilities that treat wastewater and sewage before it is discharged into Lake Taihu. Take Zhushan, for example, the 1,500-strong village has built a small sewage treatment factory that has a daily treatment capacity of 60 cubic tons.

To further monitor water quality and protect water resources, all the villages in Huzhou have implemented the "river chief" system, in which officials and village heads are assigned to take charge of protecting the waterways in their areas.

Changxing was the first pilot county in China to implement the river chief policy as early as 2008. It was later followed by Jiaxing, Wenzhou and Shaoxing in Zhejiang.

The system has been rolled out nationwide as part of wider efforts to prevent water pollution. So far, there have been about 320,000 river chiefs in the four-tier system which reaches down to the township level, said Chen Lei, then minister of water resources, last month.

Zhou Libin, head and river chief in Xiaochendu, a village close to Lake Taihu, said his responsibilities mainly lie in checking the three river courses under his jurisdiction every week, which requires him to walk about 6 kilometers.

"Once floating pollutants and wastewater discharges are spotted, we deal with them directly," Zhou said.