Shallow sub-lakes are essential for sustaining the successful wintering of waterbirds in Poyang Lake,China

For migratory waterbirds,the quality of wintering habitat is related to spring migration and successful breeding in the next year.The availability of food resources in the habitat is critical and varies within water levels.Although the water-level fluctuations in Poyang Lake have been extremely variable interannually in recent years,the wintering waterbird populations have remained relatively stable.Hence,the mechanism of maintaining the stability is worth exploring.This study aimed to compare the distribution of vegetation and herbivorous wa-terbirds in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017,focusing on three shallow sub-lakes and one main lake are.The results showed that the emergence of tubers and the growth of Carex spp.provided a continuous food supply and habitat for wintering waterbirds with a gradual decline in the water level.Shallow sub-lakes supported almost all of the tuber-eating waterbirds(1.42-1.62×10^(5))and most geese(1.34-1.53×10^(6)).However,the main lake area,covered with Persicaria hydropiper,did not provide adequate and accessible food.This resulted in almost no distribution of tuber-eating waterbirds,with only a few geese congregating in early winter.Our results demonstrated that the shallow sub-lakes under human control provided a different environment from the main lake and are key to sustaining the successful wintering of hundreds of thousands of migratory waterbirds in Poyang Lake.Therefore,we recommend refining the anthropogenic management of the shallow sub-lakes to regulate the water level to ensure the carrying capacity of Poyang Lake.

Water Security-based Hydrological Regime Assessment Method for Lakes with Extreme Seasonal Water Level Fluctuations：A Case Study of Poyang Lake,China

Extreme seasonal water level fluctuations characterize natural floodplain lakes in monsoon regions, which are crucial for ensuring lake water security, including flood prevention water supply and health of aquatic ecosystem. In order to achieve this goal, we established a hydrological regime assessment method based on a set of hydrological indicators for lakes with heavy seasonal water level fluctuations. The results suggest that time-sensitive hydrological indicators and specific time scales for various water security aspects must be considered. We discovered that it is more practical and meaningful to combine the water level classification derived from statistical analyses with characteristic hydrological values linked to water security. The case study of Poyang Lake results show that there are no discernable trends of Poyang Lake water regime status over the last 35 years, and the two periods of poor status are in accordance with climate variation in the lake basin area. Scholars and policy makers should focus on both floods and droughts, which are the main water security problems for Poyang Lake. It is hoped that this multi-scale and multi-element hydrological regime assessment method will provide new guidelines and methods for other international scholars of river and lake water assessment.

All Season Observations of Meromictic Regime at Lake Doroninskoye

1 Introduction Soda Lake Doroninskoye(Uleoti District of Transbaikalian Region,Russia)belongs to a rare type of meromictic basins.For meromictic basins,the vertical stratification in the form of sufficiently thin water layers with significantly differing physical and chemical properties is typical,as well as peculiar biota.The main characteristics of the lake Doroninskoye are:

Non-stationary water-level fluctuation in China＇s Poyang Lake and its interactions with Yangtze River

Seasonal water-level fluctuations （WLF） play a dominate role in lacustrine ecosys- tems. River-lake interaction is a direct factor in changes of seasonal lake WLF, especially for those lakes naturally connected to upstream and downstream rivers. During the past decade, the modification of WLF in the Poyang Lake （the largest freshwater lake in China） has caused intensified flood and irrigation crises, reduced water availability, compromised water quality and extensive degradation of the lake ecosystem. There has been a conjecture as to whether the modification was caused by its interactions with Yangtze River. In this study, we investi- gated the variations of seasonal WLF in China＇s Poyang Lake by comparing the water levels during the four distinct seasons （the dry season, the rising season, the flood season, and the retreating season） before and after 2003 when the Three Gorge Dam operated. The Water Surface Slope （WSS） was used as a representative parameter to measure the changes in river-lake interaction and its impacts on seasonal WLF. The results showed that the magni- tude of seasonal WLF has changed considerably since 2003; the seasonal WLF of the Poy- ang Lake have been significantly altered by the fact that the water levels both rise and retreat earlier in the season and lowered water levels in general. The fluctuations of river-lake in- teractions, in particular the changes during the retreating season, are mainly responsible for these variations in magnitude of seasonal WLF. This study demonstrates that WSS is a rep- resentative parameter to denote river-lake interactions, and the results indicate that more emphasis should be placed on the decrease of the Poyang Lake caused by the lowered water levels of the Yangtze River, especially in the retreating season.