Chinese Scientists Survey Freshwater Lakes in Source of Yellow River
14 researchers from Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGLAS), concluded a survey of the depth and water quality of lakes in the source of Yellow River in August, 2009.
It is the first time that China conducted a high density and high precision field survey on the lakes in this region with the global warming threat.
Researchers acquired first-hand data of the water quality and quantity of the Lake Eling, Lake Zaling and Donggi Conag Lake. The data will be input into the China Lake Database together with data acquired from major lakes on the Tibetan Plateau.
"This investigation comes up with a lot of new surprises," noted Li Shijie from NIGLAS. "We have observed that the average depth of Lake Zaling is over 20 meters, quite deeper than we usually believed 9 meters. It is 33 meters at the deepest."
What impressed Li and his team the most was that many lakes in this regions had grown bigger. According to remote sensing data, Lake Eling, Lake Zaling and Donggi Conag Lake all had extended with an increase of 0.5 to 47 square kilometers.
NIGLAS is the only institute specializing in the research of lake-catchment system in China. Li Shijie and his research team carried out a survey on the depth and water quality of Qinghai Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China in August 2008. They are also planning to conduct a similar survey on the lakes in the source of Yangtze River in 2010.
