Environment Change of Dongting Lake District from the Sixteenth to the Mid-twentieth Century: an Examination Focusing on Dikes.

摘要

This dissertation examines the construction process and the spatial distribution of the dikes in the Dongting Lake District, Hunan Province, from the sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It explores the general pattern of the dike expansion in the area, and analyzes the factors contributing to it.;The Dongting Lake District was the flood basin of the Yangzi River, and from the Ming dynasty onwards, in order to protect farm settlers, Chinese government constructed huge dikes. In the sixteenth century, the Ming government had built dikes in the northern and western parts of the Lake District so as to form a barrier against the floods from the Yangzi River. The Ming effort was inherited by the Qing and the Republican governments. The Qing government built dikes in southeastern in its earlier time, but shifted its focus in the northeastern part of the Lake District. In Republican time, more dikes were built in the eastern district of the Lake. Some small islands in the Lake were also surrounded with dikes. The selection of locations of dikes were affected by the sources of floods, but that selection in turn affected agricultural development in the district.;The repeated imperial efforts of dike construction transformed the agricultural development, and reshaped the relationship between communities. The protection of the dikes provided safe living environment and encouraged demographic growth, but the population increase encouraged farmers to expand farmland and improve water works through building private dikes. Private dike construction alerted the government who saw the activity an encroachment of the lake, and neighboring villages who were worried about their loss of water resources. As a result, village feuds characterized the rural society in the Dongting Lake District from the Ming to the Republican times.