Largest freshwater lake on Yellow River revived after pollution treatment

HOHHOT, April 22 (Xinhua) -- More than 200 reed paintings depicting birds and scenes of Ulan Suhai Lake, the largest freshwater lake on the Yellow River basin, are featured in a nationwide itinerant art show.

Lian Junqiang, 62, one of the creators of these artworks in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said he and five other artists painted 265 varieties of birds seen in the lake area in 2019. However, in his own memory, there used to be few water birds at the lake and its surrounding wetlands, because of pollution.

As an inheritor of such intangible cultural heritage, Lian is keen to use the folk art to record the wetland's ecological changes. Using reeds grown everywhere in the wetland, Lian painted with ironed reed slices as ink for more than a year to capture the bird figures.

Lian recalled that two decades ago, yellow algae blanketed the lake in summer, resulting in the deaths of large amounts of fish and driving away birds.

Gong Ling, one of the local farmers who followed Lian in studying reed painting, said her family's contracted farmland by the lakeside is a salinized plot. In the past, they used excessive amounts of chemical fertilizers to boost their yield.

In fact, fertilizer-polluted irrigation water and sewage were believed to be the main pollutants feeding into the lake.

The government of Bayannur City, which administrates the lake area, has for years promoted the use of organic fertilizers, while reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

In 2022, the application area of organic fertilizers in the lake area reached 4.5 million mu (about 300,000 hectares). Gong said through precise fertilization in recent years, her family has not only reduced costs in terms of agricultural materials, but also increased the yield of their crops.

Over the years, heavy polluters in the lake area have been shut down, and sewage treatment plants built or renovated. Currently, all the sewage discharged from industrial and agricultural production, livestock and poultry breeding, and tourist and residential areas near the lake, is treated to meet official standards before discharging.

Nowadays, Ulan Suhai Lake, located on the north bank of the middle reaches of the Yellow River, has resumed its natural function as a key habitat for migratory birds, and has also become a magnet for photographers.

"With the lake becoming more attractive to tourists, sales of artworks created by the local cultural specialty of reed painting will bring more income to local farmers," said Lian.