The water level of the Yangtze River in Shashi, Jingzhou city in Hubei province, fell to as low as 2.14 metres on 29 August, well below the 2.5-metre benchmark that officially marks the start of the dry season. This signalled an earlier-than-usual arrival of the dry season in the middle reaches of the river, according to the China Water Transport Newspaper.

Statistics show that even in this year’s flood season, the water level at its peak in that particular stretch was the lowest in the past five years and 3.14 metres below that of last year. As water levels continue to recede, some of the shoals in the area have emerged about 15 days earlier than normal, effectively narrowing the main shipping channel and posing shipping hazards.

The middle reaches have long been a bottleneck for shipping because of the numerous shoals and complicated river bed. The building of the Three Gorges and Gezhouba dams has greatly reduced the speed of water flow and therefore, at the time of the release cycle, the water is relatively clear. The force of the clear water, in turn, has caused a change to the pattern of the area’s river bed, making navigation more difficult in the shipping channel.