China’s largest lake is so dry, China digs deep into aquatic crops

BEIJING (AFP) – With China’s largest freshwater lake reduced to just 25% of its usual size due to a severe drought, crews are digging ditches to keep water flowing into one of the country’s major rice-growing regions.

The dramatic decline of Poyang Lake in the landlocked southeastern Jiangxi Province has cut off irrigation channels leading to nearby farmland. Digging crews, who use excavators to dig trenches, only work after dark due to the sweltering heat of the dayThe official Xinhua News Agency reported.

A severe heat wave has caused chaos across much of southern China. Soaring temperatures sparked mountain fires that forced the evacuation of 1,500 people in the southwest, and factories were ordered to cut production as hydroelectric power plants reduce production. amid drought conditions. Extreme heat and drought caused crops to wither Rivers shrunk Including the gigantic Yangtze River, which disrupted shipping traffic.

Fed by China’s major rivers, Poyang Lake averages about 3,500 square kilometers (1,400 square miles) in the high season, but has shrunk to just 737 square kilometers (285 square miles) in the recent drought.

Depending on the water level, the lake officially entered the dry season this year on August 6, earlier than any time since records began in 1951. Hydrological surveys prior to that time are incomplete, although it appears that the lake may be at or around the lowest level in modern history.

Besides providing water for agriculture and other uses, the lake is a major stopover for migratory birds heading south for the winter.

A wide area of ​​western and central China experienced days of temperatures in excess of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in heat waves that started earlier and lasted longer than usual.

The heat is likely related to human-caused climate change, although scientists have yet to do the complex calculations and computer simulations to say so for sure.

“The heat has certainly broken records, and is certainly exacerbated by human-caused climate change,” said Martin van Aalst, director of the Climate Center of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in the Netherlands. “Dehydration is always a little more complicated.”

The “really amazing temperatures that are roasting China” are linked to a stuck jet stream – the river of air that moves weather systems around the world, said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

She said an extended area of ​​relatively high atmospheric pressure parked over western Russia is responsible for heat waves in China and Europe this year. In the case of China, high pressure prevents cold air masses and precipitation from entering the area.

“When hot, dry conditions are disrupted, the soil dries up and heats up more easily, strengthening the thermal dome above it even more,” Francis said.

In the hard-hit city of Chongqing, some shopping malls have been asked to only open from 4 to 9 p.m. to conserve energy. Residents seek respite in the coolness of World War II air raid shelters.

This reflects the situation in Europe and elsewhere In the Northern Hemisphere, where rising temperatures affect public health, food production, and the environment.

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Associated Press science writer Seth Bornstein in Washington, DC contributed to this.

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