It was highly appreciated by one of the farmers from Shangquan village, Rucheng county that: “many thanks to the hydropower stations’ drainage of water to help our field’s irrigation during such drought season, otherwise we would fail to get harvest this year.”

Because of the impact of subtropical high temperature, Rucheng county kept high temperature with less rain capacity from late June. Most of the counties were suffered with severe drought. It was a peak time for the irrigation of middle-season rice currently, but the drought made the crops involved into high risk of failure.

According to preliminary statistics, 66000mu crops were affected by the drought, among which were 28600mu fields lacking of water and 24700mu lands lacking of moisture. Even more, one reservoir was dried up and 19 towns and villages of Rucheng county were faced with the droughts.

To ease the further influence of drought was one of the key working for Rucheng county now. Special conference concerned about the drought-relief was held in the county urgently, and some measures were figured out to use the water storage scientifically. Furthermore, hundreds hydropower station were mobilized to stop generating electricity, but to release water to meet the demand of irrigation first.

It was learned that Rucheng county was with strong small hydro power industry development in Hunan province. There were about 159 hydropower stations available there. From middle of this July, 110 stations of them stopped generating electricity to supply water for the 46200mu fields. Though around 26.50 million yuan direct economic loss would caused to the power stations, it played very important role in alleviating the severe drought suffered in the county.