By David Stanway
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese conservationists have devised a plan to dam a major flood outlet to the Yangtze River, Lake Poyang, fearing a hammer blow to an already fragile ecosystem, a resting area for migratory birds and home to the endangered Yangtze River.
The outcry came after the Jiangxi provincial government earlier this month revived a project aimed at regulating the flow of water in Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, which is increasingly prone to drought in winter.
A Shanghai-based non-governmental environmental group called Free Birds said in an open letter to the Jiangxi government last week that approving the project would be “extremely irresponsible”.
He accused Jiangxi of sneaking through the project without due consultation and said he challenged a plan led by President Xi Jinping to better protect the ecology of the Yangtze, which supplies water to 40% of China’s population.
According to the revised plans by the Jiangxi government, a lock will be built over 3 kilometers between the lake and the Yangtze River, with the aim of gaining control over water levels and alleviating drought.
A hydropower plant first proposed about a decade ago has been abandoned, but critics say the floodgate will still break the natural link between Poyang and the Yangtze.
The Free Birds group said the Jiangxi government should examine the real reasons for the decline in water levels in Poyang, including sand mining and water retention by giant reservoirs like the Three Gorges.
The Jiangxi provincial government did not immediately respond to a fax asking for comment.
Poyang, once described by President Xi as a vital “kidney” that filters China’s water supply, has long served as a flood outlet for the volatile Yangtze, and its waters traditionally seep back into the river during the winter.
But winter droughts have worsened in recent years – Poyang has virtually disappeared, depriving farmers of irrigation and further reducing the habitats of migratory birds and the Yangtze river dolphin.
Speaking at a seminar on Saturday, Wang Hao, a professor at the China Academy of Engineering, supported the project, saying that the lake’s conditions – caused in part by upstream hydropower – would not be easily reversed, but the project could at least improve local agriculture.
He also said that the design of the project includes specific features designed to minimize disruptions in habitat, adding that “the benefits will outweigh the disadvantages”.
But academic colleagues said the long-term challenges facing Poyang Lake are too complex to be solved by a single project, and further disruptions to the water flow could make things worse.
“The decline in water levels in Lake Poyang is caused by many reasons, but overall it is mainly the impact of engineering, including the Three Gorges Dam,” said Lu Shanlong, a researcher at the China Academy of Sciences’ Aerospace Information Research Institute .
“The best way to resolve this should be to optimize the way it is currently designed, and not to add even more engineering,” he said.
(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)