China's largest inland lake in recovery
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The Tibetan herdsman found, to his surprise, the Qinghai Lake was growing.
"The path which I took last year for morning exercise was inundated by water," said Padma, who had formed the habit of taking a stroll near the scenic lake every morning.
In the Jiayi village of the Gonghe county, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of northwest China's Qinghai Province, his home was several hundreds meters away from the lake.
"It seems that the water is expanding every year, especially this year," he said.
His "finding" was proved by authorities. Statistics from the Qinghai Provincial Hydrographic and Water Resources Survey Bureau showed that water level in the Qinghai Lake had kept rising for five years, and from 2005 to 2008 the growth was 54 centimeters.
The bureau estimated that the growth this year could be about 10 centimeters.
"This is the first time since 1955 when water level kept rising for five consecutive years," said Duan Shuiqiang, a senior engineer from the bureau.
In the past, the water level just rose for two consecutive years, and this occurred twice.
The Qinghai Lake, nesting at the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is China's largest inland lake and saltwater lake. It has been shrinking in the past half a century.
As water level dropped an average of 3.78 meters a year, Qinghai lost nearly a West Lake each year.
A dock of a fishing pool built in the 1960s was abandoned in the 1980s for the lack of water. Cai Qing who worked in the fishing pool for 40 years recalled that he didn't see any water in last year.
"But this year, water reappeared in the dock," he said.
Official survey showed that in 2008, the acreage of Qinghai Lake was 4,317 square kilometers, 132 up from four years ago.
Many experts believed that the recovery of the Qinghai Lake was due to preservation of forest.
From 2002, the province launched a project to restore forest in places which had been turned to crop fields. Farmers could get compensation for the restoration.
To date, 31,333 hectares of fields had been converted to forest. Besides, another 56,600 hectares of forests were preserved.
"Before 2000, the sky was shrouded by sand in windy days," Cai Qing recalled.
"Now the wind is still strong, but we have just a few sandstorms each year," he said.
Forestation improved local climate and brought forth rainfall.
Statistics from the meteorological bureau of Qinghai showed that average rainfall from 2004 to 2008 was 431.3 millimeters, 13 percent up from the average from 1971 to 2000.
"More rainfall resulted in the rise of water level," said Duan Shuiqiang.
While Dai Sheng from the climate research center of Qinghai said, "more clouds over the lake reduced the evaporation in the lake, which slowed down the drop of water level."
Global warming was cited as another cause of the recovery.
From 2001 to 2008, average temperature around the lake was up 0.6 degrees Celcius from the 1990s. Monitoring stations found that the inflowing rivers obviously swollen.
The temperature in Tibet Autonomous Region has risen by an average of 0.32 degrees Celsius every 10 years from 1961 to 2008, according to China Meteorological Administration (CMA) data.
"Due to global warming, glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are retreating extensively at a speed faster than in any other part of the world. In the short term, this will cause expansion of lakes," said Qin Dahe, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is former head of CMA.
Despite the recovery, water level of the lake was still generally below that 50 years ago.
"From 1955 to 2004, the water level dropped four meters. We are not sure if it could return to the past level," Duan Shuiqiang said.
While Cai Qing noted that the lake's shoreline had retreated for nearly 100 meters.
But meteorological experts were optimistic.
"In the next two decades, the lake will still see abundant rainfall," said Dai Sheng.
"By 2030, the lake will return to what it was like in the 1970s, and the water level will be three meters higher than the current," he said.
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