Green embankments help conserve Yellow River

Sika deer are raised on a patch of grassland in Zoige in July last year. The county has one of the largest wild groups of the animal. CHINA DAILY

Wetland remediation

Eco-friendly approaches have also been used in Aba prefecture to help restore wetlands, which have undergone substantial shrinkage due to the conversion of wetlands into grasslands by local herders.

In a pilot project to remediate Flower Lake, which annually replenishes about 4.4 billion cubic meters of water to the Yellow River, the Zoige National Nature Reserve Administration built a 1,740-meter dike using stone and soil in 2010 to help recover its water areas.

Over the past decade, the Flower Lake wetland has seen its water area expand from 215 to 650 hectares, with water levels rising by 52 centimeters. Additionally, a total of 892 hectares of marshlands were restored.

In Hongyuan, two small-scale gabion dikes and an additional 155 similar mini dikes of the same type have been constructed as part of an initiative for wetland restoration, launched in 2021.

At the Riganqiao Wetland, such dikes have also worked well in their remediation of damaged ecosystems.

Following the construction of a 1,760-meter gabion dike and another 100 mini dikes in 2022, 240 hectares of wetland have been remediated, with the water area in Riganqiao expanding by 200 hectares, said Yeyang Drolma, a wetland management official in Hongyuan.

Monitoring shows that the level of groundwater in the area covered by the project has risen by approximately 20 centimeters, she noted.

"The number of wild animal species monitored in the area has increased from 10 to 20. The black stork, a species very rare nationwide, has also been frequently spotted after the wetland restoration program," she said.

As a ranger who often patrols the area, Tsering Kyab is keenly aware of the significant changes that have occurred.

"When I was a child, there was so much water in the wetland that it was impassable for people and even for horses. Now, thanks to the project, the wetland of my childhood memory is coming back," he smiled.