In Depth: Why China’s Longest River Is Being Drained
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The river channel in the Honghu section of the Yangtze River has dried up, and residents can cross the river and walk onto the sandbar in the middle of the river on November 24. Photo: Wang Shuo
Flooding and drought, and the increasingly rapid shifts between the two are causing the water level of China’s mighty Yangtze River to fluctuate dramatically.
Zhan Guisheng, a caretaker of a monitoring barge in Wuhan, Hubei province, which straddles the Yangtze’s main channel in Central China, saw the river’s water level reach a near record high of 28 meters in July before falling almost 15 meters in two months.
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