China's second-largest freshwater lake, Dongting Lake, has expanded 28.9 percent over the past 40 years as a result of the restless efforts made by local authorities in returning farmland and relocating residents in order to make room for the lake to recover its flood control capabilities.

Dongting Lake is important in China both culturally and ecologically. It is where dragon boat racing originates in China, and a home to the endangered finless porpoise.

Since 1978, the size of Dongting Lake in central China's Hunan Province has increased by 779 square kilometers and now reaches 3,470 square kilometers, according to the Hunan provincial bureau of water resources.

Linked with the Yangtze River, Dongting Lake was once the country's largest freshwater lake. Since 1949, due to sediment accumulation and farmland reclamation, the lake shrank from 4,350 square kilometers to 2,691 square kilometers until 1978.

Its flood storage capacity was then reduced, thus raising the flood control risk downstream in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

Since the massive flooding in 1998, local authorities have relocated residents and sped up the returning of farmland to the lake to boost the flood control capabilities.

Over the past 20 years, local authorities have demolished 333 dikes and relocated 558,000 people, said Zhan Xiao'an, director of the Hunan provincial bureau of water resources.

In addition to the efforts to boost flood control, local authorities will also strive to add more water into the lake during the dry season to improve its ecological environment, said Zhan.