Beijing will adopt measures such as tree replacement, clipping trees and spraying water to reduce the volume of catkins that annually besiege local residents, a local forestry official has said.

Beijingers face a blizzard of the wind-borne tree flowers every spring, which gets into people's noses and mouth as well as machines, bringing potential risks to residents' health, public transportation safety and affecting the accuracy of precision equipment.

"We will not eliminate poplar and willow trees to fix the catkin problem, because these trees have remarkable ecological and economic benefits," Yang Zhihua, an official with Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry, told a press conference on Thursday.

Poplar and willow trees can absorb carbon dioxide, lower temperature and reduce dust. A poplar tree can generate economic benefits worth 49,000 yuan ($7,914) per year, and a willow tree can generate 75,000 yuan worth, according to chinanews.com.

According to Yang, measures to reduce catkins include replacing ill poplar and willow trees with other kinds of trees, clipping prosperous poplar and willow trees, and spraying water to trees every three to five days so that they will produce less catkins.

Beijing had tried injections to control catkin in the past few years. But Wang Xiaoping, another official with the bureau, said this is not the top choice due to the high costs and damage to trees. Only around 100,000 poplar and willow trees have received injections since 2008.

The authorities also launched a survey on the number of poplar and willow trees and their growing situation and also tagged the gender of the trees. The result will be released by the end of June, Wang said.

In Beijing, the trees were mainly planted during the 1960s and 1970s, a majority of them female, which produce catkins.