The city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province has been scouting around for more and better approaches to dealing with its air pollution problem and its environmental watchdog recently opened an online system to deal with coal-fired boilers that allows authorities to check on 2,800 boilers scattered about the city through data analysis.

In commenting on the system, Liu Gang, of environmental inspection office, explains, “We can get all the information about any unit that’s registered in the system, such as its location, number of boilers, details, type of fuel, and person in charge.”

When this new approach is combined with the city’s online environmental monitoring and management system, it can apply 24-hour real-time monitoring of industrial emissions from more than 240 key enterprises. It also has a regulation on smoke from cooking fires from outdoor barbecue stalls in downtown areas, which says that any business barbecuing food in a stall outside illegally can face a fine of from 500 yuan ($77) to 20,000 yuan.