Falling water level in China’s Poyang Lake reveals ancient architecture

Receding waters in China’s largest freshwater lake in the eastern province of Jiangxi each year reveal normally submerged features of a 1,000-year-old historic island and former lighthouse.

But Luoxingdun island in Poyang Lake has been left standing in a sea of grassland weeks earlier than usual in 2019, as low-water levels were recorded in early September.

A unique habitat for animals including the Siberian crane, Poyang Lake has seen increasingly lower water levels blamed on drought as well as dams on the Yangtze River.