Fangbian Reservoir

Overview

Fangbian Reservoir lies on the upper Ergan River, a Qinhuai tributary, in the east of Lishui District, in Dongping Subdistrict. It is medium-sized and one of the district's six medium-sized reservoirs (district government natural resources page). The Dongping Subdistrict environmental impact report calls it the largest medium-sized reservoir in Lishui District and the second largest in Nanjing; that wording has been found in this one source only, with no second figure from the water authority.

Construction and filling: work began in September 1958 and the reservoir filled in November 1959 (People's Government of Lishui District reply of November 2023; the Nanjing Municipal People's Government reply of December 2023 agrees).

Capacity: total capacity 4900 10,000 m³, flood control capacity 2644 10,000 m³, usable capacity 2084 10,000 m³ and dead capacity 172 10,000 m³ (People's Government of Lishui District reply of November 2023; the Nanjing Municipal People's Government reply of December 2023 agrees). This entry takes the total capacity of 4900 10,000 m³. The Dongping Subdistrict environmental report gives a total capacity of 5070 10,000 m³; both are shown under Open questions.

Which capacity is meant: reservoir capacity is reckoned in four ways, total, flood control, usable and dead. The four are not interchangeable, and "capacity" must not be written without naming the measure. Total capacity is the whole volume of storage below the reservoir's highest water level; flood control capacity is the volume available for detaining floodwater; usable capacity is the volume available for beneficial regulation; dead capacity is the volume below the dead water level. Where the figures given in the reply differ from the water authority's formal annual report, the annual report prevails.

Area: the total catchment is 77.1 sq km, of which the water surface is 6.68 sq km (Journal of Lake Sciences, 2022, vol. 34 no. 5, section 1.1). This entry takes the water surface of 6.68 sq km. The environmental report gives a catchment of 77.1 sq km, which agrees with the paper's total catchment and corroborates it; catchment and water surface are not the same thing.

Other names: Dongping Reservoir and Dongping Lake. The title of the proposal answered by the Nanjing Municipal People's Government in December 2023 was "on desilting Lishui's Dongping Lake to increase capacity and protect water quality", while the body uses Fangbian Reservoir, which is official evidence that Dongping Lake is Fangbian Reservoir.

The reservoir belongs to the Qinhuai basin. Its subdistrict is Dongping: the environmental report was commissioned by the Dongping Subdistrict Office, and the Jiangsu Provincial Forestry Bureau's approval records that the provincial wetland park "lies in Dongping Town, Lishui District, Nanjing", Dongping Town being the name in use in 2019 and Dongping Subdistrict today.

Formation and change

The reservoir stands on the upper Ergan River, a Qinhuai tributary, and the area draining to it is the 77.1 sq km catchment. On inflow channels, the Journal of Lake Sciences paper lists seven: Qinglongqiao, Siguao, Xinan Cun, Fangpeng flood diversion ditch, Xiejiageng, Wangjiashan and Houlyu rivers; the People's Government of Lishui District's reply of December 2025 lists the seven inflow channels improved in 2021 as Houlyu, Wangjiashan, Qinglongqiao, Xiejiageng, Yangjiaba, Xinan Cun and Youshang rivers, about 10.9 km in all. The two lists are not identical and are shown side by side without being merged; the reply covers one round of works in 2021 only and does not mean that all works over the years are complete.

Hills around the dam: the environmental report records Tangni, Donglu, Jing and Fu hills around the dam, with the site running up to 11 km north to south and 8.5 km east to west.

Drinking water: in 2003 Fangbian Reservoir was designated a drinking water source water function area by the Jiangsu Provincial People's Government (Nanjing Municipal People's Government, 5 December 2023). The list of drinking water sources in the 2018 annual implementation plan for water pollution prevention includes the Lishui District Fangbian, that is Dongping, Reservoir source; in 2022, 999 10,000 yuan was spent on ecological restoration in the Chendun part of the Fangbian Reservoir drinking water source (Nanjing Municipal People's Government, 5 December 2023); and the 14th Five-Year Water Plan records that the Lishui District Fangbian Reservoir Safety Assurance Plan is being put into effect.

No first-tier source has been found for a complete list of the reservoir's reinforcement works or for resettlement, so nothing is written here.

Landscape and visiting

Levels and depths: the usable water level is 26.20 m, with a usable capacity of 2084 10,000 m³; at that level the mean depth is about 4.7 m and the greatest depth 10.7 m (Journal of Lake Sciences, 2022, vol. 34 no. 5, section 1.1).

Protected status: in March 2019 the Jiangsu Provincial Forestry Bureau approved the establishment of the Lishui Dongping Lake Provincial Wetland Park, with a planned area of 758.5 ha (Su Lin Shi [2019] No. 10, approved 20 March 2019). The approval does not give the relation between the wetland park's area and the reservoir's, and this site does not write that the wetland park is the reservoir's water surface.

Water quality research: the 2022 paper in the Journal of Lake Sciences takes this reservoir as a case study of an oligo-mesotrophic water body with occasional cyanobacterial blooms, using data from the long-term monitoring record of the Nanjing branch of the Jiangsu Provincial Bureau of Hydrology and Water Resources Survey, 2006 to 2020. That conclusion belongs to a technical document; this site records only the subject of the study and the years of its data, and does not restate the conclusion.

Visiting information: the reservoir is a centralised drinking water source with no public visiting, and this site gives no tickets, opening times or transport; readers who need visiting information should go to the official notices of the district water department, the district culture and tourism department and the local subdistrict. Opening information is current to September 2026.

Open questions

• Two figures for the total capacity: 4900 10,000 m³ (People's Government of Lishui District reply of November 2023; Nanjing Municipal People's Government reply of December 2023) and 5070 10,000 m³ (Dongping Subdistrict environmental report, December 2019). This entry takes 4900 and sets both side by side without choosing.
• Area: this entry takes the water surface of 6.68 sq km, on the paper's basis. The total catchment, or catchment area, of 77.1 sq km is not a water surface and the two must not be used interchangeably.
• Dongping Reservoir, Dongping Lake and Fangbian Reservoir are three names for one water body. This entry takes the water bureau name Fangbian Reservoir as its title and explains the other two in the body.
• The two lists of inflow channels differ (seven in the paper and seven in the 2025 district reply, with only some names in common) and are shown side by side without being merged; neither states that it is the complete list.
• "The largest medium-sized reservoir in Lishui District and the second largest in Nanjing" has been found in the environmental report only, with no figure from the water authority; it is cited with its source.
• The provincial wetland park approval says Dongping Town, the name in use in 2019, now Dongping Subdistrict; the approval gives no relation between the wetland park's area and the reservoir's.
• Capacity has four forms, total, flood control, usable and dead, and this entry fills in only the total. The usable capacity of 2084 10,000 m³ in the paper agrees with the district government's reply and corroborates it.
• The number of medium-sized reservoirs in the district is given as six (district government natural resources page) and as seven (14th Five-Year Water Plan); the number of small reservoirs is given as 73 and as 79, and this site does not create entries for all of them in its first phase.
• This entry was formed by merging the Lishui History site entry "Fangbian Reservoir" into it; that entry rested on two sources only, the district reply and the district natural resources page, and was the thinner of the two. Both covered one and the same reservoir, so under the one-place-one-entry principle it is now kept here and the history site entry is no longer published on its own.
• No first-tier source has been found for the type and length of the dam, the design flood standard or the extent of the irrigation district, so nothing is written about them.