Has China’s Long Canal entered the World Irrigation Engineering Heritage List?

According to the Water Conservancy Bureau of Xiangyang City, Hubei Province, the Chang Canal (also known as Baiqi Canal) located in the city has been successfully declared as a world irrigation engineering heritage. This is also the first world irrigation engineering heritage in Hubei Province, which has a developed water system.

The Xiangyang Water Conservancy Bureau introduced that the 69th International Executive Council of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, which is being held in Saskatoon, Canada, announced the 2018 (fifth batch) World Irrigation Engineering Heritage List. China's Changqu, Dujiangyan, Lingqu, and Jiangxiyan projects were all successfully declared. The Chang Canal is located in the south of the ancient city of Xiangyang, starting from Xiejatai Village in Nanzhang County in the west to Chihu in Yicheng City in the east and entering the Han River, with a total length of 49.3 kilometers. According to legend, its predecessor was a channel opened by Bai Qi, a general of the Warring States Period. By the Southern Song Dynasty, a relatively complete irrigation system had been formed. It is a typical representative of the ancient "vine-bearing melon" irrigation project. It still irrigates Nanzhang County and Yicheng City for 30 years. ．30,000 acres of fertile land.

Experts said that after successive repairs, the Chang Canal has now developed into a large-scale reservoir with Sandaohe as the main water source, 15 Jiegua reservoirs and 2671 Pitangs as supplementary water sources, and trunk and branch channels at all levels as veins. "Large, medium and small" are matched, "storage, diversion and lifting" are combined, and the "vine grows melon" type agricultural irrigation system. The project has 1 main canal above designated size, 38 main branch canals, 499 gates, 39 aqueducts, 518 culverts, 3 inverted siphons and 1 rolling dam. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, Changqu has provided more than 14 billion cubic meters of agricultural and industrial water to Nanzhang and Yicheng, making a huge contribution to the grain harvest in the irrigated areas.