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The vast Dongting Lake in central China has expanded by nearly 20 percent over the past five years thanks to grain-for-water projects.

As the enlarged area can store an extra of one billion cubic meters of water, local people's lingering fear of flooding is gradually receding.

Since 1998, approximately 300,000 people formerly living around China's second largest freshwater lake have returned their reclaimed farmland to the lake and moved out to build new residential homes.

Jin Shenggao, an expert with the Yueyang Water Quality Inspection Center of the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee, said the grain-for-water project was vitally important to local ecology.

"The returned farmland will become wetlands, better adjusting to the local climate and protecting the lake's water quality, drawing more species back to the lake," he said.

"Also, no pesticides and chemical fertilizers are to be used any more and that has led to a sharp drop in chemical pollutants."

To fully tap the lake's huge water resources, county governments along the lake are set to develop aquaculture of local specialties such as turtles and pearls.

Two kinds of fish bred in the lake by Liu Jun, an academician with the China Academy of Sciences, have been widely sold over seas in Japan, Europe and the United States.

Zhang Huadan, ex-head of the Water Resource Bureau of Yueyang city, nicknamed "The Walking Encyclopedia of Dongting Lake," said, "So long as the country's grain-for-water policy is implemented in the letter, the lake's previous prosperity and beauty will surely reemerge."

Dongting Lake, spanning both naturally-endowed Hubei and Hunan provinces, used to be the largest freshwater lake in the country over a period of 181 years from 1644 to 1825 with an area of around 6,270 square kilometers.

The central authorities of the imperial Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), however, called on people in 1895 to move on to the islets of the lake, starting massive land reclamation, which slashed the area to 2,740 square kilometers.

The 600,000 local residents of Nanxian county, which covers 1,000 sq km, had to rebuild their homes and farms after they were repeatedly destroyed by floods.

The reinforcement of cofferdams, embankments and dykes became an annual ritual, and local farmers had to bear a financial burden of 300-400 yuan (US$36-48) more than those living in mountain areas.

With the double burden of floods and financial troubles, many farmers have abandoned their reclaimed farmland to seek a living in the cities.

In Anxiang village of Anxiang county, the worst case, more than half of 1,300 hectares of arable land has been left idle.

To spare local people their annual battle with flooding, the Chinese government decided to implement the grain-for-water project in 1998.

Now, when flood season approaches, the vast lake will again be churned up -- not by men busy on dyke reinforcement, but by lively birds swarming in to their nests.

(Xinhua News Agency August 6, 2002)