Ecological burial services are gaining popularity across China, as the authorities try to ease the severe shortage of cemetery space.

Civil affairs bureaus and cemeteries in many cities are providing subsidies to encourage people to purchase ecological burial services, in the run-up to Tomb-sweeping Day, the traditional Chinese festival to visit cemeteries and offer sacrifices to ancestors, which falls on April 4 this year.

Lu Ning, deputy director of Xiaoshushan Cemetery in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, said 24 households have arranged services on Saturday morning to bury family members' ashes under trees, a patch of grass or in flowers, instead of in traditional graves.