[The Epoch Times, March 02, 2023]Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, has recently dried up again, and the water area has shrunk to the smallest in nearly a decade.
On March 1, China Weather Network reported that since late February, the water level of Poyang Lake has continued to drop. According to the Jiangxi Provincial Hydrological Monitoring Center, at 8:00 on February 27, the water level at Xingzi Station of Poyang Lake fell to 7.9 meters, which was lower than the 8-meter extremely dry water level.
According to the report, the monitoring map released by the National Satellite Meteorological Center of the Communist Party of China shows that Poyang Lake has been severely dry recently, and the area of the water body is the smallest in the same period in the past 10 years. On February 27, the water body area of Poyang Lake was about 1,044 square kilometers, which was about 21.8% smaller than the average for the same period in the past ten years, and about 30.5% smaller than the same period last year.
From early to mid-February, although the entire province of Jiangxi continued to receive rainfall, the inflow of Poyang Lake was not only affected by precipitation but also by upstream water and other factors. The decrease in inflow of five rivers in Jiangxi and the retreat of the water level of the main stream of the Yangtze River would also have an impact.
Poyang Lake is located in the northern part of Jiangxi Province, on the south bank of the Yangtze River. Poyang Lake bears the water of Ganjiang River, Fuhe River, Xinjiang River, Raohe River and Xiuhe River, and flows into the Yangtze River from the mouth of the lake to the north.
The aforementioned report also stated that in the coming week, Jiangxi will still be dominated by sunny or cloudy weather, the temperature will continue to be high, the precipitation will be significantly less than normal in the same period, and the water level of Poyang Lake will continue to drop.
In the summer and autumn of last year, Poyang Lake experienced severe dry conditions. “The dry water of Poyang Lake has bottomed out” was frequently searched on Weibo in mainland China. The thousand-year-old stone island “Luoxingdun” in Poyang Lake was once fully exposed.
On September 19, 2022, netizens near Xieshan Island, Poyang Lake, Jiujiang, photographed a “sandstorm” blowing from the exposed lake bed of Poyang Lake due to the continuous drought. Mainland media reported in October of the same year that as of 4:00 pm on October 23, 2022, the water levels of five rivers and seven stations in Jiangxi Province were all lower than the average for the same period for many years, 26 rivers over 10 square kilometers in the province were cut off, and the water levels of 3,604 reservoirs were dead. Below the water level, 56,100 mountain ponds dried up.
Editor in charge: Xiao Lusheng