Overseas Chinese media and community leaders visited Daihu Lake in Beibei District, Chongqing, on Friday as part of a tour highlighting the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle.
The lake was built in 1931 by patriotic industrialist Lu Zuofu. It covers about 20,000 square meters with a total capacity of 125,000 cubic meters.
Nestled in Jinyun Mountain, the lake serves as an algal gene bank with approximately 140 species of desmids and is regarded as a treasure house of aquatic desmids. Unregulated tourism had severely degraded its water quality and ecosystem.
In 2019 the Beibei District government launched a comprehensive ecological restoration project using a mountain-stream-pond composite ecosystem approach. Authorities relocated buildings and planted more than 80 species of trees, shrubs and aquatic plants across 28,900 square meters, restoring 17,900 square meters of water area.
After a wildfire damaged Jinyun Mountain in the summer of 2022, Beibei carried out systematic post-disaster restoration, turning burn scars into green landscapes that complement the lake revival.