The Silting Caused Disappearance of Lakes
3 min readIn the ancient times, there distributed many lakes in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, which were similar to the water-bound region in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River of today. Among them there were many large lakes, such as Daye Lake, Leixia Lake and Heze Lake in Shandong Province and Dalu Lake in Hebei Province etc. and the number of small lakes was countless.
For thousands of years the Yellow River flooded for many times and each time large amount of sand and silt was carried to all the places the water went, which deposited to the lakes in the basin and made numerous lakes silt up gradually and become flat at last. Among themthe typical ones are Dalu Lake and Daye Lake.
1) Dalu Lake
Dalu Lake was the largest lake in the ancient China, approximately located among the present-day Julu County, Ningjin County and Shenxian County in Hebei Province. The name “Dalu Lake”was appeared very early and enjoyed a high reputation. In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods (722 BC-221 BC), the Yellow River flowed through the lake and left much silts here. From the 1lth to 12th century, the Yellow River passed Dalu Lake again and was breached nearby, large amount of sand and silt was carried by the water into the lake.
Till the late 19th century, after ages of silting up of the YellowRiver, the ancient Dalu Lake was only left with two very small lakes, one called Ningjin Po and the other still called Dalu Lake, however, both lakes were of very limited area, much smaller than the original Dalu Lake in the ancient time. Till today, even thetwo small lakes have disappeared under the constant silting of the Yellow River, hence Dalu Lake disappeared completely.
2) Daye Lake
The original location of Daye Lake was in the southwest of Shandong Province, among Juye County, Jiaxiang County and Heze County. Most part of Liangshan County, its central area, used to be submerged in Daye Lake for long time.
According to the historic records, in 132 BC, the Yellow River has begun to transport sediment into Daye Lake with its water spilling into the lake. It was funny that the Yellow River at that time, as if it was having fun with Daye Lake, sometimes brought large amount of water which enlarged the area of Daye Lake andsometimes car ried large amount of sand and silt into the lake which silted DayeLake or even stuff it. However, generally speaking, Daye Lake still existed and was just shrinking at a low speed.
In the late 3rd century, the area of Daye Lake had become very small, only leftwith a small part in the northeast corner of Juye County. And till the mid-5th century, the lake enlarged again and it had already reached the south foot of Liangshan Mountain to the north in early 6th century. Till the early 9th century, Liangshan Mountain has reduced to an island in the lake. In the famous Chinese classical novel Water Margin, the Liangshan Po where the 108 heroes including Song Jiang became outlaws was just the Daye Lake at that time. According to the description of Water Margin, the area of Daye Lake kept expanding, which must be the maximum area Daye Lake has reached in the history.
After the Song dynasty (960-1279), the Yellow River flooded more and more frequently, and more and more silts deposited in Daye Lake, which gradually siltingthe lake up. In 1344, the Yellow River again carried large amount of silts into thelake and as the water withdrew, the lake was silted up by the sediments, only withsmall body of lake left. This flooding of the Yellow River brought Daye Lake fatal disaster. Although later Daye Lake continued to exist till the early Qing dynasty (1616-1911), it didn’t last anyway.
