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Desert lake's water level declining
By Ma Lie (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-10-08 06:57
XI'AN: The water level in Hongjiannao, the country's largest natural fresh
water lake in a desert, is continuing to decline, leading experts to worry that
the lake could eventually disappear.
"In the past six years the water level of the lake has decreased by three
metres. The area of the lake has decreased from 7,000 hectares in 1999 to 4,667
hectares at present, a 389-hectare decrease each year," said Lei Jiexiang,
deputy director of the lake's scenic zone administration committee.
Located in Yulin Prefecture in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province,
Hongjiannao is a famous desert scenic spot that attracts thousands of tourists
each year. Last year, more than 130,000 visitors from Shaanxi and other regions
visited the lake, Lei said.
The lake is a haven for birds and fish. "There are 26 kinds of birds that
have second-class State protection and 16 kinds of wild fish living in the
lake," the deputy director said.
"However, the continuing decline of the lake's water level has made us very
depressed, and every decline extends the desert, which threatens the natural
environment," Lei said.
Experts believe there are three reasons behind the decline of the lake's
water level.
Dry weather is the first cause, according to Yang Guangtian, an expert on the
desert lake. "I remember that the lake was hit by a flood caused by heavy rains
in 1962, but since then there has been no heavy rain at all," the expert said.
According to local meteorological department, which monitors the weather in
Hongjiannao, annual precipitation there is only about 350 millimetres, and there
is a continental dry climate.
"The second cause of the lake's water reduction is the excessive extraction
of ground water for farmland irrigation and for drinking water. Even worse is
the destruction of the ground water system by industrial development," the
expert said.
Geological data shows that the water source for the lake is mainly ground
water. In the past decade, the ground water level has continued to fall and
number of bogs and small lakes around Hongjiannao have dried up and vanished.
There are rich resources of coal, gas and oil in the region, and
ill-thought-out mineral development has led to the destruction of the ground
water system, said Jiao Peng, a local energy and power firm technician who has
studied the area.
Moreover, the Yingpan River, which provides more than 40 per cent of the
total water supplied to the lake, stopped in 2004 in the upper reaches of the
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region because of water shortages, said Liu Jian, an
official of Shenmu County where the lake is located.
The local government launched a project to protect the lake in 1992. The
total area of the protection zone was planned to be 112 square kilometres and
any building should have been forbidden up to one kilometre from the lake, Liu
said.
"But the rapid and intemperate economic development is a serious threat to
the lake, and we need more money for the lake's protection. Experts concluded
after careful investigation that at least 300 million yuan (US$37 million)
should be invested to fulfil the lake protection target," the official said.
(China Daily 10/08/2005 page2)
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