Zheshantou Reservoir

Overview

Zheshantou 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 reply of the Lishui District Water Affairs Bureau and the Jingqiao Town government records that "Zheshantou Reservoir is a medium-sized reservoir of Lishui District, with the Zheshantou Reservoir Management Office specifically responsible for its management and protection"; the Nanjing Municipal Water Resources Bureau's 2022 list of the "four responsible persons" for reservoirs gives its scale as medium and its township as Jingqiao Town.

Capacity: total capacity 1138 10,000 m³, usable capacity 413 10,000 m³ and usable water level 25.0 m (Jiangsu Water Resources, 2022 no. 5, Table 2). This entry's capacity_10k_m3 takes the total capacity of 1138 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 Zheshantou Reservoir a water surface of 145.88 ha for "reservoir surface — Zheshantou Reservoir", covering two parcels. This entry's area_km2 takes 145.88 ha, that is 1.4588 sq km; 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.

Registered unit and boundaries: registered unit number 320117333000004, unit type "reservoir surface", situated in Lishui District, Nanjing, Jiangsu. Its boundaries are an existing road to the east, an existing river to the south, the Hangcun line to the west and the Zhisha line to the north. The registered unit covers 201.45 ha in all, of which 154.95 ha is state-owned, 46.50 ha collectively owned and 0.00 ha disputed; the natural resources within the unit total 163.29 ha, namely 145.88 ha of water flow, 0.00 ha of wetland, 17.05 ha of forest and 0.36 ha of grassland, with a further 38.16 ha of non-natural-resource land such as cultivated land and built-up land. The forest breakdown 11.14 + 5.37 + 0.54 = 17.05 and water flow + forest + grassland = 163.29 agree with the totals in the register and can be cross-checked.

Basin recorded as Shijiu Lake: the Dongping Subdistrict Office environmental report table records that the Yunhe River "is a branch of the Xinqiao River ... flowing from Zheshantou Reservoir through Yunhe and Kongzhen until it enters the Xinqiao River at Shagang Village", and both the Yunhe River and the Xinqiao River belong to the Shijiu Lake system, hence Shijiu Lake; no official document directly stating Zheshantou Reservoir's basin has been found on this site, see Open questions.

Townships crossed: Jingqiao Town (Nanjing Municipal Water Resources Bureau, March 2022).

Formation and change

Relation to the source: the Dongping Subdistrict Office environmental report table records that "the Yunhe River ... is a branch of the Xinqiao River, 11.99 km in all. Its direction is north-west, flowing from Zheshantou Reservoir through Yunhe and Kongzhen until it enters the Xinqiao River at Shagang Village", so Zheshantou Reservoir is the source of the Yunhe River. The reply of the district water bureau and the Jingqiao Town government records that "the inflow channel lies on the upper east side of Zheshantou Reservoir, within the reservoir's management scope, about 400-plus mu in area, and is the main catchment channel of the reservoir". The southern boundary of the register's four boundaries is an "existing river", with no name given, and this site does not infer from it that it is the Yunhe River or the Xinqiao River.

Management scope: the reply of the district water bureau and the Jingqiao Town government quotes Article 5 of the Measures for the Management and Protection of Water Conservancy Works in Lishui District for the management scope of Zheshantou Reservoir: the area below the cross-check flood level line (Qingdao datum 28.00 m); from the downstream toe of the dam to the West Main Canal; and at both ends of the dam, to 15 m west of the spillway in the west and to 30 m east of the dam end in the east. Article 3 of that instrument lists seven district-managed reservoir management offices, including the Zheshantou Reservoir Management Office; Article 19(1) records that its maintenance funds are budgeted by the district finance bureau.

Drinking water source and cancellation: in December 2013, under the Notice on publishing the first batch of the Nanjing municipal drinking water source list (Ning Shui Zi [2013] No. 498), Zheshantou Reservoir was designated a first-batch municipal drinking water source; after regional water supply was achieved it no longer carried the tap water supply task, and from 9 October 2019 it was cancelled by 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) (reply of the district water bureau and the Jingqiao Town government). Zheshantou Reservoir is still 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).

Ecological restoration and improvement: the plan records that 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, 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 "Zheshantou Reservoir drinking water source protection area" of 3.05 sq km and a "Zheshantou Reservoir water source conservation area" of 13.77 sq km; the 2025 draft plan for evaluating and optimising ecological space control areas records a "Zheshantou Reservoir water source conservation area" of 1448.4723 ha. The latter is a draft for comment, not an instrument in force.

No year of construction for Zheshantou 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 17.05 ha of forest within the registered unit, namely 32 parcels of other woodland totalling 11.14 ha, 13 parcels of bamboo of 5.37 ha and 11 parcels of high forest of 0.54 ha; 0.36 ha of grassland in 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.

Surroundings: the reply of the district water bureau and the Jingqiao Town government to suggestion no. 038 of the district people's congress has "improving the surroundings of Zheshantou Reservoir" as its theme and records that the inflow channel lies on the upper east side of the reservoir, about 400-plus mu in area, and is the main catchment channel of the reservoir. That reply is a working reply and gives no landscape, footpath 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 Zheshantou Reservoir from 2011 to 2021, assessed on total phosphorus and total nitrogen: class II 8.3%, class III 60.6%, class IV 26.5%, and class V and worse 4.6%, the last occurring in 2011, 2012 and 2013. 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 Zheshantou 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 the Yunhe River rises at Zheshantou Reservoir and enters Shijiu Lake through the Xinqiao River; no official document directly stating Zheshantou Reservoir's basin has been found on this site.
• Area basis: this entry's area_km2 takes the water-flow area of 145.88 ha (1.4588 sq km) on the confirmed registration basis. The register notes that this is the water-flow range of the registered unit and is not the same statistical range as the reservoir's designed water surface; no figure for the designed water surface has been found on this site, and the two may not stand in for one another.
• The catchment of 58.10 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.
• Only one source for the capacity: the total capacity of 1138 10,000 m³ and usable capacity of 413 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.
• Datum: the cross-check flood level of 28.00 m (Qingdao datum) comes from the Measures for the Management and Protection of Water Conservancy Works in Lishui District as quoted in the reply of the district water bureau and the Jingqiao Town government; that instrument also gives Yaojia Reservoir's cross-check flood level as 22.59 m, Laoyaba Reservoir's as 37.52 m and Wolong Reservoir's as 20.15 m (Wusong datum). Two different datums appear in the one instrument, and any citation must mark them separately without converting between them.
• The southern boundary "existing river" gives no river name: that column of the register is a boundary description, and it may not be used to supply the Yunhe River or the Xinqiao River; the relation between Zheshantou Reservoir and the Yunhe River rests on the Dongping Subdistrict Office environmental report.
• Boundary names: the register's four boundaries give names ending in "line" such as the Hangcun line and the Zhisha 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.
• Drinking water source status: Zheshantou Reservoir's listing in the first batch of the municipal drinking water source list in December 2013 and its cancellation on 9 October 2019 are on the "municipal drinking water source" basis; "drinking water source area" is a water function area basis, different from "centralised drinking water source" and "drinking water source protection area", and the terms may not be rewritten for one another.
• 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 Zheshantou Reservoir has been found, so none is written.
• 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.