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Dongting Lake in Central China has expanded in area by nearly 20 percent over the past five years thanks to the return to the lake of areas that had been reclaimed for agriculture.

As the enlarged area can store an extra 1 billion cubic meters of water, the likelihood of flooding in the region is gradually being reduced.

Since 1998, approximately 300,000 people formerly living around Dongting Lake, China's second largest body of fresh water, have returned their reclaimed farmland to the lake and moved out to build new homes elsewhere.

Jin Shenggao, an expert with the Yueyang Water Quality Inspection Center of the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee, said the project is vitally important for the local ecology.

"The area returned to the lake will become wetland, which is better adjusted to the local climate and can help protect the lake's water quality and drawing more species of aquatic life back to the lake," he said.

"Also, the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers has been forbidden, which has led to a sharp drop in chemical pollutants."

To fully tap the lake's huge water resources, county governments along the lake are set to develop aquaculture facilities for local specialties such as turtles and pearls.

Two kinds of fish bred in the lake by Liu Jun, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have been widely sold overseas in Japan, Europe and the United States.

Zhang Huadan, ex-head of the Water Resource Bureau of Yueyang city, nicknamed "The Walking Encyclopedia of Dongting Lake," said, "So long as the country's policy of returning land to lake is carried out to the letter, the lake's previous prosperity and beauty will surely come back."

Dongting Lake, which is situated between Hubei and Hunan provinces, was the largest freshwater lake in the country from 1644 to 1825, a period of 181 years, with an area of around 6,270 square kilometer.

The Qing (1644-1911) imperial government, however, made people in 1895 to move on to the islets of the lake, and start massive land reclamation projects, which slashed the area to 2,740 square kilometers. Troubles began.

For example, the 600,000 local residents of Nanxian county, which covers 1, 000 square kilometers, had to rebuild their homes and farms repeatedly after they were destroyed by floods.

The reinforcement of cofferdams, embankments and dykes became an annual ritual, and local farmers had to bear a tax burden 300-400 yuan (US$36-48) higher than that of people living in mountain areas.

With the double burden of floods and financial troubles, many farmers abandoned their reclaimed land to seek a living in the city.

In Anxiang village of Anxiang county, the worst case, more than half of the 1,300 hectares of arable land has been left idle.

To spare local people their annual battle with flooding, in 1998 the Chinese Government decided to implement a project to reverse the former land reclamation policy, returning the land to the lake.

Now, when flood season approaches, the vast lake will again be alive with life: Not men busy reinforcing dykes, but by aquatic birds swarming their nests.

(China Daily August 12, 2002)