Reply on RC2

Jie Fei

doi:10.5194/cp-2021-121-ac4

Abstract

Lake Machang, which occupies an area of approximately 30 km2 in Jining City of eastern China, was a historical reservoir on the Grand Canal existing from early 15th century to early 20th century. The premodern monthly water level observation of Lake Machang commenced in 1814 AD and ended in 1902 AD. The available observation data from the monthly records could cover 75.6 % of the whole study period 1814–1912. Although the water level was seemingly artificially intervened by human activities, monthly and annual water level changes still correlated well with precipitation. That is, climate is still the dominant factor of water level changes on seasonal and annual scales. The flooding of the Yellow River in 1871 AD carried large amount of silt into Lake Machang, which resulted in the rise of lake bed and reclamation initiated by local residents. In particular, after the reclamation activity was officially approved in 1900 AD, Lake Machang was massively reclaimed and eventually dried up in the early 20th century.

Highlights

Historical reservoir evolution is a promising subfield of climatic change studies (Cardoso-Silva et al, 2021; Margarint et al, 2021; Bábek et al, 2021; Fei et al, 2021; Halac et al, 2020)
Textual records on reservoir water level are fragmentary and qualitative, which hamper the reconstruction of water level change with high resolution
To improve the practice of using historical records on water level to understand past climate change, the water level change of Lake Machang in Jining City, eastern China during the past 200 years has been reconstructed in this work

Summary

Introduction

Historical reservoir evolution is a promising subfield of climatic change studies (Cardoso-Silva et al, 2021; Margarint et al, 2021; Bábek et al, 2021; Fei et al, 2021; Halac et al, 2020). Lake Machang, reservoir, Grand Canal, reclamation, water level Lake Machang, which occupies an area of nearly 30 km2, was a historical reservoir on the Grand Canal (Figure 1) that had existed for several centuries until it dried up in the early 20th century.

Results

Conclusion