Abstract
From the Three Gorges down to the delta, the Yangzi River lowlands were once among the largest wetland systems in the world, but they have mostly been turned into farmland and settlements. This paper outlines how this process occurred in the Central Yangzi basin of Hubei and Hunan from the Neolithic domestication of rice to the Three Gorges Dam. These lowlands were seasonal wetlands dominated by the annual floods of the summer monsoons, and the key to transforming them into farmland was to build dikes. Over the past two millennia people have gradually rebuilt the region's waterways and landscape, transforming a massive wetland system into both productive farmland and the economic and demographic core of central China. By tracing the human transformation of the region from prehistory to the industrial present, this article reveals long-term trends that may not be apparent from a conventional historical timescale, and evaluates the changing impact of technology, demography, and political organization.
Keywords
Yangzi River, water control, wetlands, environmental history, Hubei, Hunan
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