Increasing stretches of China's coastal waters were seriously polluted in 2012, mainly from excessive polluting discharges from land, the State Oceanic Administration reported on Wednesday.

The area of severely polluted Chinese coastal waters surged to 68,000 square kilometers in 2012 from 44,000 sq km in 2011, according to the country's 2012 marine environment report.

Guan Daoming, director of the National Marine Environmental Monitoring Center, blamed the worsening marine environment on surging human activity.