It was learned that Dongjiang Dam was switched off to store water from 1980s’. Because of this, Zixing city’s water area was enlarged to 300,000mu, covering 100,000 people in 10 towns and villages. Some villages which were located around Dongjiang Lake were surrounded with water, so villagers preferred to go outside by ship from then.

He Jingle who was over 50 years old was a villager from Huangcao town. He worked as a ship driver from the very first beginning when the dam was switched off, so he was familiar to every details of the changes of Zixing city’s water transportation.

In recent years, followed with the principal to “replace the old ship once new one is ready”, some new style passenger ships were placed to operation one by one. “Travel around Xiaoxiang” was a new two-layer passenger purchased by Zixing city in 2013. This 113-seat was drove by He Jingle recently. Furthermore, time schedule of the water transportation were figured out well systematically that passengers can tell the estimated time of delivery and arrival easily.

Safety is the most important concern for water transportation. Many old villagers there still remembered the simple and dangerous water transportation at the beginning. In order to regulate the water transportation and ensure its safe operation, a video monitoring center was established in Dongjiang Lake. All the ferry crossings and docks were installed with electronic probes. Assisted with the automatic identification system, vessel traffic service system and geographic information system, the monitoring center can carry out 24-hour dynamic monitoring the 46 ferry crossings and docks, 429 passenger and cargo ships, and over 3000 farmers’ ships in Dongjiang Lake area,.

Zixing was updated as a city 30 years ago, and its water transportation was improved greatly in the last 30 years as well. Currently, there were 429 passenger and cargo ships, 46 ferry crossings and docks in Dongjiang Lake area. Its cruising range was about 314kms and rotation volume of passenger transportation was 1.5million persons. The ships helped the villagers lived near the water reservoir to connect with outside world. Fast and safe were the two key words that can describe the condition of Zixing city’s water transportation. Along with the development of water transportation, local economy was upgraded as well.