The Paper reporter Zhao Zuoyan Wang Yasai
Yangtze River droughtcontinuedUrgent.
Liu Weiping, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, said at a press conference on August 17 that the drought situation in the Yangtze River Basin is developing rapidly, and the 6 provinces (cities) of Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui have an area of 12.32 million mu of arable land, 830,000 people, 16 Thousands of large livestock were affected by the drought.
He added that at present, irrigation water sources and urban and rural water supply in large and medium-sized irrigated areas are guaranteed, and the drought-affected farmland is mainly distributed at the end of the irrigated area and the “Wangtian Tian” without irrigation facilities; the water supply is mainly affected by small reservoirs or mountain springs, A decentralized water supply project where streams are used as water sources.
At the press conference, Gu Binjie, inspector of the Department of Flood and Drought Disaster Prevention, also pointed out that in general, the worst meteorological drought since 1961 occurred in the Yangtze River Basin. It is predicted that the rainfall in the Yangtze River Basin may still be low in August, and the drought may continue or develop further.
The Yangtze River is in emergency
Poyang Lake, located in Jiangxi Province, is one of the main tributaries of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. In July 2020, a large-scale flood occurred here, and the water level exceeded the warning line by 19.5 meters, the highest level in history, causing more than 9.5 million people to be affected.
However, this year, due to the continuous high temperature and low rainfall, Poyang Lake entered the dry season ahead of schedule.
According to the report of the Jiangxi Provincial Emergency Management Department, at 2:00 on August 6, the water level of the Poyang Lake representative station Xingzi Station retreated to 11.99 meters, marking the entry of Poyang Lake into a dry season, 100 meters ahead of the record since 1951 (the average time from 1951 to 2002). sky. 2022 will be the earliest year for Poyang Lake to enter the dry season on record.
According to the press conference of the Ministry of Water Resources on August 17, the current water levels of the main stream of the Yangtze River, Dongting Lake, and Poyang Lake are 4.85-6.13 meters lower than the same period of the previous year, the lowest since the measured record. The surface area of Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake decreased by 3/4 compared with June.
On August 8, 2022, the beach of Poyang Lake is exposed in Jiujiang, Jiangxi.The surging news reporters compiled the water level data of the four water level stations in the Yangtze River (Chongqing, Hankou, Yichang, Nanjing) in the past two months and the same period last year, and found that the overall water level has decreased compared with last year.
Every July and August are the flood seasons in our country. At present, the country as a whole maintains a situation of drought in the south and flood in the north.
The Paper reporters compiled the water level data of 856 water level stations in rivers across the country. Compared with the warning water level that warns of flood danger, the water level stations that still have a large gap between the current water level are concentrated in the central and southern regions of my country. This means that there is a rare phenomenon of “reverse dry season” in this part of the region.
Why the drought?
Why is there a drought in the Yangtze River Basin this year, which is rare in the same period for many years?
The Wuhan Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters once explained that this is because the rainfall in the Yangtze River Basin is significantly less, the inflow of water from the upper reaches is reduced, and the continuous high temperature leads to an increase in evaporation.
According to the Ministry of Water Resources, since July, most of the Yangtze River Basin has continued to have high temperature and little rainfall, and the rainfall is 4.5% lower than the same period of the previous year, which is the lowest in the same period in history since 1961. The number of high-temperature days in most areas of the basin exceeded 20 days, in the middle and lower reaches of the country for more than 30 days, and in some counties, there were more than 20 consecutive drier days, including more than 40 consecutive drier days in Hunan. In contrast, the inflow of water from the Yangtze River, Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake is 2-80% lower than the same period of the previous year.
Judging from the national temperature anomaly map of the China Meteorological Administration, in the past 10 days, the Yangtze River Basin has generally warmed by 4-6 degrees compared with the average of previous years.
Image source: China Meteorological AdministrationAt the same time, the precipitation is less – in the past 10 days, the precipitation in the Yangtze River Basin is less than 20% of the average value of previous years.
Image source: China Meteorological AdministrationIn order to effectively cope with the current severe drought in the Yangtze River Basin, since August, the water conservancy department has dispatched controlled reservoirs in the Yangtze River Basin to supply 5.3 billion cubic meters of water to the middle and lower reaches.
Since 12:00 on August 16, the Ministry of Water Resources has implemented the “Special Action for Joint Operation of Reservoir Groups in the Yangtze River Basin for Drought Relief and Water Supply”, dispatching cascade reservoirs in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River with the Three Gorges Reservoir as the core, and the “Four Waters” Reservoirs in Dongting Lake and Xiangziyuanli. Qun, Poyang Lake, Jiangxi, Fuxin and Rao Xiu, the “Five Rivers” reservoir group increased the outflow flow to replenish water for the downstream, and planned to replenish 1.48 billion cubic meters of water.
