In May 2007, a large bloom of blue-green algae spread on Lake Tai, and residents of Wuxi rushed to buy bottled water. In August, Wuxi issued trial rules with water quality targets for its rivers and lakes. People’s Daily later reported that this is regarded as the origin of the river chief system (hezhang zhi), which makes the leading Party and government officials of each level responsible for each river.
Changxing County in Zhejiang had already set up river chiefs in 2003. In December 2016, the Central Committee and the State Council ordered the system for the whole country.