Yangtze River Water Conservancy History Ⅲ

In Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties and modern times, the Yangtze River Water Conservancy got great development. Many important water conservancy projects were built in Yangtze River basin. With the introduction of western water conservancy techniques, there appeared more works about Yangtze River water conservancy research.

Yangtze River Water Conservancy History – Brief Introduction of Yangtze River

Yangtze River is the largest river in China, which is 6300 kilometers long. It passes by Qinghai, Tibet, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shanghai, totally ten provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions. It has over 700 branches, covered 1807,000 square kilometers. Compared to the Yellow River, the Yangtze River is more stable, with larger water amount and less sediment concentration. Although there were several serious floods in Yangtze River history, most of them were useful for navigation and irrigation. Since Three Kingdoms, the Yangtze River was becoming main agricultural production base and economy zone of China. With constantly development of the Yangtze River water conservancy project, the Yangtze Cruise also got great development in Yangtze River history.

Yangtze River Conservancy History – Yuan, Ming, Qing Dynasties and Modern Times

In Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the economy more depended on the south area of the Yangtze River. In this period, the embankments on Yangtze River main stream and branches were gradually completed. There were systematic embankments from Jingjiang River to Jiangsu area, and the embankments in Hanjiang River, Xiangjiang River and Ganjing River started to be built. In modern period, most entrances of Jingjiang River distributaries were blocked, there only four distributaries flow into Dongting Lake. The records of floods and blockage in downstream of Hanjiang River and Jingjiang River increased. In the down reaches, the Su Zhou, Song River, Lianhu Lake in Jianxing, Wusong River were dredged for thousands times. In upper reaches, the Songhua Dam and Haikou Project in Dianchi water system, Yunnan are most outstanding. And the Dujiangyan also rebuilt and enlarged. The Beijing-Hangzhou Canal which was completed in Yuan Dynasty had become important transportation way from south to north in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Taihu Lake basin was most important waterway of grain transportation. Zhejiang and Hangzhou Seawall were built in Song Dynasty, and there appeared standard seawall in Qing Dynasty. In late period of 19th century, the western water conservancy techniques were introduced to China, and the works about Yangtze River water conservancy research were increased. And the Yangtze River control concentrated on dredging the channel.