SHANGHAI IN CHINA: The central Chinese language province of Jiangxi has declared a water supply “red alert” for the first time after the Poyang freshwater lake, the country’s greatest, dwindled to a report low, the Jiangxi government said on Friday (Sep 23).
The Poyang Lake, normally a vital flood wall plug for the Yangtze, China’s longest river , continues to be suffering from drought since June, with water levels at a key monitoring spot dropping from 19. 43m to 7. 1m over the last three months.
The Jiangxi Drinking water Monitoring Centre said Poyang’s water levels would fall even further in coming times, with rainfall nevertheless minimal. Precipitation considering that July is sixty per cent lower than annually earlier, it said.
As many as 267 weather stations across China reported record temperatures in August , and a long dry spell across the Yangtze river basin severely curtailed hydropower output and damaged crop growth in front of the autumn harvest.