On the morning of September 16, 2025, the groundbreaking ceremony for the second phase of the key embankment reinforcement project in Dongting Lake District, Hunan Province was grandly held at the Xinxingzui embankment section in Canggang Town, Hanshou County, Changde City, marking the official start of this major project that concerns people's livelihood and ecological security.

Dongting Lake, as an important lake for regulating and storing floods in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, plays a crucial role in the comprehensive flood control system of the Yangtze River Basin. There are 11 key embankments in the Dongting Lake area of Hunan Province, which have significant flood control significance. The second phase of the project that started this time is to reinforce the embankments of five embankments, including Bao'an, Yuannan, Datong Lake, Yule, and Xiangbin South Lake, to meet the standards. The project involves 8 counties (cities, districts) in Yueyang, Changde, and Yiyang, with a dike length of 563km and a protected area of 2620km ². It covers an existing cultivated land area of 2.04 million mu, benefiting a total population of 1.67 million people and a total industrial and agricultural output value of 37.8 billion yuan. It directly protects two county-level cities, Hanshou County and Nanxian County, as well as the Datong Lake Management Area.

The estimated total investment for the second phase of the project is 5.94 billion yuan, with a total construction period of 54 months. The construction content is rich and diverse, covering various aspects such as embankment heightening and thickening, slope protection and foot protection, slope reinforcement, soft foundation treatment, seepage prevention of embankment body and foundation, treatment of structures passing through the embankment, hardening of flood prevention road surface at the top of the embankment, and termite control. After the completion of the project, it will directly benefit 2.04 million acres of arable land and 1.67 million people in the Dongting Lake area, greatly enhancing the regional flood control and disaster reduction capabilities, ensuring the safety of people's lives and property, and the stable development of industrial and agricultural production.

The reinforcement project of key embankments in Dongting Lake District, Hunan Province follows the principles of systematic governance, step-by-step construction, and reaching standards for each embankment, and will be promoted in two phases. The first phase of the project has started construction in September 2022, and the embankments of six key embankments including Songli, Anzhao, Yuanli, Changchun, Lanni Lake, and Huarong Hucheng have been reinforced to meet the standards. It is expected that the main construction of the project will be completed by the end of 2025. The launch of the second phase of the project is a powerful continuation of the first phase, aimed at achieving systematic management of 11 key embankments.

I believe that with the steady progress of the second phase of the project, the flood control barrier in Dongting Lake area will become even stronger, providing solid guarantees for the sustainable development of regional economy and society and ecological security.Editor/Cheng Liting