More than 1,000 lakes have disappeared in China in the past half century and more than 80 percent of lakes along the lower reach of the Yangtze river have been affected by algae outbreaks, officials said at the 13th World Lake Conference.
More than 1,400 environmental experts and scholars from over 40 countries are attending the four-day conference that began Monday in central Hubei province.
The theme of the conference is "rehabilitation of our lakes".
"The number of lakes has been reduced by 1,000 in 50 years, and there are 20 lakes on average disappearing in China every year," Zhang Yongchun, an expert from the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences, told the Global Times Monday.
The country lost 9,570 sq km of water area, and 51.6 billion cubic meters of water-storage volume, in the past half century.
"Deterioration of water quality in lakes hasn't been controlled yet