The water level of the Qinghai Lake, the largest saltwater lake in China, will continue to drop in upcoming six years as a result of drought and less rainfall at the river valley.  

The conclusion was based on a survey on climate change at the region around the Qinghai Lake conducted by the Qinghai provincial meteorological bureau.

Li Lin, deputy head of the Qinghai provincial climate information center, said studies over the past 42 years showed there are two major reasons for the fallen water level: human activities and environmental changes. The natural environmental changes exert greater influence to the water level change than the human activities.

In the middle of 1980s, humans consumed about 20 percent of water at Qinghai Lake each year. By the early 1990s, this amount dropped to 8.7 percent, proving the limited role human beings played, Li said.

The up and down of the water level of Qinghai Lake is mainly decided by the amount of water flowing into the lake. Statistics show the average waterflow into the Qinghai Lake during the past years has steadily decreased, especially in the 1990s.

Qinghai Lake covers 4,232 square kilometers in the northern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

As another victim of desertification in the region, the water level of Qinghai Lake has lowered by 3.7 meters in the past three decades and its water surface shrank by 312 square kilometers.

(Xinhua News Agency September 16, 2004)