Yaojia Reservoir

Overview

Yaojia Reservoir lies in Jingqiao Town, Lishui District, and is one of the district's six medium-sized reservoirs (Nanjing Municipal Water Resources Bureau, March 2022; district government natural resources page; Jiangsu Water Resources, 2022 no. 5). Its class is medium: the Nanjing Municipal Water Resources Bureau's 2022 list of the "four responsible persons" for reservoirs gives Yaojia Reservoir's scale as medium, its township as Jingqiao Town, and its management unit as the Yaojia Reservoir Management Office.

Capacity: total capacity 1140 10,000 m³, usable capacity 538 10,000 m³ and usable water level 20.6 m (Jiangsu Water Resources, 2022 no. 5, Table 2). This entry's capacity_10k_m3 takes the total capacity of 1140 10,000 m³. No second figure for the total capacity has been found on this site, nor any figure for the flood-control or dead capacity.

Area: the Natural Resource Register of the Nanjing Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau, entered on 14 June 2024, records in the water-flow table of the registered unit Yaojia Reservoir a water surface of 171.71 ha for "reservoir surface — Yaojia Reservoir", covering two parcels; the same table has a further single river parcel of 0.05 ha, so the "water flow" row totals 171.77 ha. This entry's area_km2 takes the reservoir surface of 171.71 ha, that is 1.7171 sq km; the two rows are different fields, see Open questions.

Registered unit and boundaries: registered unit number 320117333000003, unit type "reservoir surface", situated in Lishui District, Nanjing, Jiangsu. Its boundaries are the Shuzhang line to the east, the Yaoshu line to the south, the Xiaowu line to the west and the Shitang River to the north. The registered unit covers 210.06 ha in all, of which 187.55 ha is state-owned, 22.51 ha collectively owned and 0.00 ha disputed; the natural resources within the unit total 184.08 ha, namely 171.77 ha of water flow, 0.00 ha of wetland, 11.13 ha of forest and 1.18 ha of grassland, with a further 25.98 ha of non-natural-resource land such as cultivated land and built-up land.

Basin recorded as Shijiu Lake: no official document directly stating Yaojia Reservoir's basin has been found on this site; the basis is that Jingqiao Town lies in the south of the district and belongs to the Shijiu Lake basin, and that the outlet of Yaojia Reservoir's inflow channel is adjacent to the upstream canal head of the Qiuhu Pumping Station (Article 5(2)2 of the Measures for the Management and Protection of Water Conservancy Works in Lishui District records that the upstream canal head of the Qiuhu Pumping Station runs "north to No. 1 aqueduct, east to the outlet of Yaojia Reservoir's inflow channel"), see Open questions.

Townships crossed: the municipal water bureau's 2022 list records Jingqiao Town. The Yongyang Subdistrict profile page lists Zhongshan Lake, Yaojia Reservoir and Wolong Lake together as the subdistrict's "three major water source protection areas", which is a promotional statement, and Yaojia Reservoir's flood-control responsibility belongs to Jingqiao Town, so this site does not write the township from that page.

Formation and change

Management scope: Yaojia Reservoir is under district management. Article 3 of the Measures for the Management and Protection of Water Conservancy Works in Lishui District lists seven district-managed reservoir management offices, including the Yaojia Reservoir Management Office; Article 19(1) records that its maintenance funds are budgeted by the district finance bureau. A cross-check flood level of 22.59 m (Wusong datum) is given in the district water bureau's and Jingqiao Town government's reply to suggestion no. 038 of the district people's congress, quoting that instrument.

Provincial class I management unit: in 2019 the Yaojia Reservoir Management Office passed review as a provincial class I water engineering management unit of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Water Resources (Jiangsu Provincial Department of Water Resources, 9 January 2019). That document lists only the units passing the review and gives no engineering parameters, class or year of construction.

Drinking water source area and cancellation: Yaojia Reservoir is one of the drinking water source areas (Jiangsu Water Resources, 2022 no. 5; the drinking water function area list in the 13th Five-Year plan includes Fangbian, Zhongshan, Laoyaba, Yaojia and Zheshantou but not Wolong). On the municipal drinking water source side, the reply to suggestion no. 038 of the district people's congress quotes the Notice on cancelling the municipal drinking water source list entries of Yaojia Reservoir and others in Lishui District (Ning Shui Ban Zi [2019] No. 92), which agreed to cancel Yaojia Reservoir and other municipal drinking water sources, the cancellation taking effect from 9 October 2019. That reply has Zheshantou Reservoir as its subject, and the year Yaojia Reservoir was listed is not separately stated in it, see Open questions.

Ecological restoration and improvement: the plan records that during the Twelfth Five-Year period water ecological restoration works were carried out on the Huanhe River, the Chendun reservoir area of Fangbian Reservoir, the Zhongshan Reservoir intake, and the inflow channels of Wolong Reservoir and Yaojia Reservoir; the 13th Five-Year tasks include comprehensive water-environment improvement, water-quality monitoring and ecological wetland restoration on the inflow channels of the four medium-sized reservoirs Laoyaba, Yaojia, Zheshantou and Wolong (Lishui District Water Development 13th Five-Year Plan, the latter being a plan-task statement and not written here as completed). The same plan records that during the Twelfth Five-Year period the reinforcement of six medium-sized reservoirs in the district, including Zhongshan and Fangbian, was completed (a district-wide total, with no year or content given for each).

Ecological space: the Lishui District Finance Bureau's 2020 ecological space protection area table records a "Yaojia Reservoir drinking water source protection area" of 4.27 sq km and a "Yaojia Reservoir water source conservation area" of 13.04 sq km; the 2025 draft plan for evaluating and optimising ecological space control areas records a "Yaojia Reservoir water source conservation area" of 1452.8325 ha. The latter is a draft for comment, not an instrument in force.

No year of construction for Yaojia Reservoir or reservoir-by-reservoir list of reinforcement works has been found on this site, so nothing is written here.

Landscape and visiting

Natural conditions in the reservoir area: the register records 11.13 ha of forest within the registered unit, namely 50 parcels of other woodland totalling 10.92 ha and 3 parcels of high forest of 0.21 ha; 1.18 ha of grassland in 12 parcels of other grassland; and 0.00 ha of wetland. These are the natural conditions on the confirmed registration basis, not a scenic area's extent or opening information.

Water quality statistics: Jiangsu Water Resources, 2022 no. 5, takes the six medium-sized reservoirs of Lishui District as its subject and gives monthly water quality statistics for Yaojia Reservoir from 2011 to 2021, assessed on total phosphorus and total nitrogen: class II 15.2%, class III 59.8%, class IV 23.5%, and class V and worse 1.5%, the last occurring in 2012. Those proportions are ratios from monthly statistics for 2011 to 2021, not a water quality conclusion for any one year; the paper also assesses the eutrophication trend, and this site records only the subject of the study and the period of its statistics without restating evaluative judgements.

Visiting information: no first-tier source has been found for public visiting, a lakeside footpath, viewing facilities or tickets at Yaojia Reservoir; the reservoir is a drinking water source area, and visiting information should follow the official notices of the district water department, the district culture and tourism department and the local town. Opening information is current to September 2026.

Open questions

• No direct source for the basin: this entry's basin records Shijiu Lake, on the ground that Jingqiao Town lies in the south of the district and belongs to the Shijiu Lake basin, and that the outlet of Yaojia Reservoir's inflow channel is adjacent to the upstream canal head of the Qiuhu Pumping Station; no official document directly stating Yaojia Reservoir's basin has been found on this site.
• Two area rows: the register's water-flow table "reservoir surface — Yaojia Reservoir" 171.71 ha and the "water flow" row 171.77 ha are two fields (the latter including a single river parcel of 0.05 ha); this entry's area_km2 takes the former, and any citation must state which row is meant. The registered area is the water-flow range on the confirmed registration basis and is not the same statistical range as the reservoir's designed water surface.
• Only one source for the capacity: the total capacity of 1140 10,000 m³ and usable capacity of 538 10,000 m³ in Jiangsu Water Resources, 2022 no. 5, Table 2, have no equivalent figure from the water authority on this site; the table gives only total and usable capacity, which are not the same set as the flood-control and dead capacities of Fangbian and Zhongshan in the district people's congress reply, and the two may not stand in for one another.
• The catchment of 58.11 sq km is found only in Jiangsu Water Resources, 2022 no. 5, Table 2; that column's figures are very close for four reservoirs and cannot be reconciled with the county-wide total in the Eleventh Five-Year water plan, and no second source has been found, so this site does not adopt it on its own and leaves the catchment field empty.
• Municipal drinking water source milestone: the cancellation of Yaojia Reservoir appears in Ning Shui Ban Zi [2019] No. 92 (whose title reads "Yaojia Reservoir and others"); that document is the reply on suggestion no. 038 of the district people's congress concerning Zheshantou Reservoir, and the year Yaojia Reservoir was listed and the details of its cancellation are not separately stated in it; this site quotes the document number as it stands and does not supply its listing year.
• Township basis: the Yongyang Subdistrict profile page lists Zhongshan Lake, Yaojia Reservoir and Wolong Lake as the subdistrict's "three major water source protection areas", which is a promotional statement, and Yaojia Reservoir's flood-control responsibility belongs to Jingqiao Town, so this site does not write the township from that page.
• Year of construction: neither the register, the water bureau's list nor the paper in Jiangsu Water Resources gives a year of construction, and no year of construction or document number of class approval for Yaojia Reservoir has been found, so none is written.
• Boundary names: the register's four boundaries give names ending in "line" such as the Shuzhang line, the Yaoshu line and the Xiaowu line; the register treats these as boundary descriptions only and does not say whether they are roads or boundary lines, so they are quoted as they stand without inference.
• The cross-check flood level of 22.59 m (Wusong datum) reaches us through the district water bureau's and Jingqiao Town government's reply to suggestion no. 038 of the district people's congress, quoting the Measures for the Management and Protection of Water Conservancy Works in Lishui District; that reply has Zheshantou Reservoir as its subject, so any citation must state that it is the reply's quotation of the instrument and must mark it separately from Zheshantou Reservoir's Qingdao datum level.
• 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 latter does not name them, and this site does not supply a name for the seventh.