For over 10 years, Hu Fuqing, a volunteer river chief in the Wangjiang subdistrict of Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, has patrolled the Xinkai and Xintang rivers every single morning — rain or shine.

Armed with homemade tools and an unwavering sense of duty, he has meticulously recorded his observations in river patrol journals, amassing 3,700 entries, some 700,000 Chinese characters in length, that document the transformation of the rivers from murky waters in 2015 to today's crystal-clear waterways.

His diaries are a grassroots testament to China's ecological progress.