Controlling the deluge along the Yangtze River would have been far easier if the 56.1 billion cubic meter flood storage capacity - lost due to the shrinkage of lakes over the past five decades - had been carefully preserved.

Extremely heavy rains have battered many cities along the country's longest river over the past weeks and rapidly rising water levels have threatened to breach dikes. In such a situation, it is worth pointing out that the nation has paid a huge price for being short sighted on the question of flood control.

More than 100 lakes have either been artificially filled to meet construction needs or reclaimed for farming just in Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei province, during the past half century. This year too, part of a well-known lake was reportedly filled to make way for a holiday resort.

Several famous freshwater lakes such as Poyang, Dongting and Taihu along the Yangtze have shrunk considerably in the past decades due to farming, real estate development projects or industrial units.

During the 1998 floods, more than 3,000 people were killed, 5 million houses razed and 20 million hectares of arable land inundated. The economic losses totaled 160 billion yuan. Nobody wants a repeat of that this year.

Local resources have been mobilized to consolidate river embankments to prevent the disaster from causing more damage. People's Liberation Army forces have been sent to rescue stranded residents.

Still, governments at all levels must work to preserve lakes. Otherwise, we will be more vulnerable to such disasters.

If anything, the grim flood situation this year must teach us to respect nature more.