China's Drought: Shocking Images of Devastation

Shocking images reveal the devastation caused by drought in China. The worst dry spell in 60 years is threatening nature and agriculture.

Editorial Team Wild beim Wild — 26 August 2022

China is in the midst of an unprecedented heatwave and months-long drought during what is normally the rainy season.

The heatwave has now lasted an astonishing 70 days, and particularly in southern China, this represents the longest uninterrupted period of high temperatures since records began 60 years ago.

It has caused rivers and reservoirs to dry up completely, severely impacting hydroelectric power plants and triggering power outages in some regions. Factories in Sichuan Province – a major hub for the manufacture of products such as batteries and solar panels – were forced to shut down for six days in order to ration electricity supplies.

A man walks along the exposed riverbed of the Jialing River in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing.

Four government agencies warned on Tuesday (24 August) in a joint emergency declaration that the autumn harvest was «seriously at risk».

They urged local authorities to use water sparingly, calling for the development of new water sources and even cloud seeding — spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to generate rainfall.

One of the hardest-hit regions is the Yangtze River basin, which stretches from Shanghai on the coast to Sichuan Province in the southwest. The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world.

A once-submerged Buddhist statue stands on the reef of Foyeliang Island in the Yangtze River.

According to China's Ministry of Water Resources, rainfall in the region has dropped to its lowest level since records began in 1961, causing some stretches of the river to almost completely dry up.

The falling water levels have even exposed three Buddhist statues on a flooded island, believed to be 600 years old.

Shocking satellite images released by the company Planet Labs PBC illustrate the extent of the drought. The high-contrast photos show China's largest freshwater lake, Lake Poyang, in August 2021 and August 2022.

In a section near the village of Zhupaoshan in Jiangxi Province, the formerly lush green area has dried out to shades of brown. The water of the lake has been reduced to a thin trickle.

Local media report that the water level of Lake Poyang stood at only 9.87 metres on 19 August. Although the water level normally fluctuates with the seasons, this is the earliest date on which the lake has entered its low-water period since 1951.

This is attributed to persistently high temperatures and low precipitation in the Yangtze River basin.