Ningxia Zhenxue Lake National Wetland Park

Ningxia Zhenxue Lake National Wetland Park

Ningxia Zhenxue Lake National Wetland Park is a national-level wetland park.

Zhenxue Lake lies to the west of the majestic Helan Mountains. It is a permanent freshwater lake formed by the ancient Xiaoxi River and mountain floods from the Helan range. The terrain is higher in the west and lower in the east, featuring a dish-shaped depression landscape typical of Xidatan. As one of the important lake wetlands in the northern part of the Yinchuan Plain, this natural lake entered its first "social role" in the mid-1970s with the development of the economy, society, and modern water conservancy—serving as a flood retention reservoir. It primarily intercepted mountain floods from the area north of Daxifu Gully and south of Rujigou in the middle section of the eastern Helan foothills. Initially, the main reservoir covered an area of only 4.7 square kilometers, with a total capacity of 9.4 million cubic meters and a bottom elevation of 1,097 meters, and the dam crest at 1,100 meters. Due to the backwater pressure from the San'er-Zhi Gully, water below the 1,098-meter elevation inside the reservoir could not be drained, leaving an actual storage capacity of just 5.84 million cubic meters. Between May 20 and June 11, 1998, two major rainstorms and mountain floods caused partial dam breaches at the Zhenxue Lake flood retention reservoir, flooding large areas of farmland and resulting in severe losses. In response, the local water authority expanded the reservoir by constructing two additional sections in 1999: Reservoir Zone I and Zone II, with capacities of 1 million and 5 million cubic meters respectively, located on the south and north sides of the spillway channel. Two open-type flood diversion gates and one flood discharge reservoir were also newly built. Subsequently, the reservoir underwent reinforcement work in 2009 to eliminate risks, bringing the total capacity of the main reservoir and three flood diversion reservoirs to 19.85 million cubic meters.

Unlike the bustling tourist scene at Sand Lake, Zhenxue Lake in another corner of Qianjin Farm has quietly safeguarded vital infrastructure such as National Highway 110, the Baotou-Lanzhou Railway, and Yao-Ru Road, along with over 20,000 residents in six administrative villages of Chonggang Town in Pingluo County and six teams of Qianjin Farm, as well as 80,000-plus mu of farmland and 1,000 mu of fish ponds for many years.

With the advancement of ecological civilization, deeper reform and opening-up, and the implementation of the Western Development Strategy, Zhenxue Lake—as one of the key lake wetlands in the northern Yinchuan Plain—embarked on its second "social role" in 2014: a national wetland park (pilot). The goal was to fully realize the ecological, social, and economic benefits of the Zhenxue Lake wetland. According to the plan, the construction of Ningxia Zhenxue Lake National Wetland Park (pilot) is divided into two phases: the near-term phase from 2014 to 2017, and the long-term phase from 2018 to 2020. The wetland park stretches 7 kilometers from east to west and 3.6 kilometers from north to south, covering a total area of 24,000 mu. It is divided into five functional zones: a conservation zone of 12,300 mu, a restoration zone of 9,776 mu, a rational use zone of 910 mu, a science education and publicity zone of 512 mu, and a management service zone of 496 mu, accounting for 51.30%, 40.72%, 3.79%, 2.13%, and 2.07% of the total planned area respectively. The high proportion of conservation and restoration zones—up to 92%—reflects the wetland park’s philosophy and objective: “to restore the lake and wetland to their true nature.”