Two reservoirs, thirty kilometers apart, joined by a canal that took four years to build. Xidayang Reservoir -- the West Dayang -- sits in Tang County, Baoding, collecting mountain runoff in the foothills of the Taihang range. Like its larger partner Wangkuai Reservoir to the west, it was born in the frenzy of the Great Leap Forward, designed by the Hebei Provincial Water Resources Department and constructed between 1958 and 1960. For decades the two reservoirs operated independently. In 2012, an engineering project connected them, creating a unified water system that now channels over 100 million cubic meters annually to Baiyangdian Lake, northern China's largest and most threatened freshwater body.
The Great Leap Forward produced many infrastructure projects of varying quality and lasting consequence. Xidayang Reservoir was among the more successful. Designed by the institute arm of the Hebei Provincial Water Resources Department, its construction began in 1958 and reached basic completion in 1960 -- two years of intensive labor that harnessed streams flowing east from the Taihang Mountains. Continued construction through 1970 expanded the reservoir's capacity and addressed structural shortcomings in the original design. The dam that emerged was a large-scale facility capable of flood control, irrigation, and water supply. By 2005, however, decades of operation had exposed safety concerns, prompting a consolidation and danger-elimination project that cost 198 million yuan and took 36 months to complete.
Baiyangdian Lake, roughly 100 kilometers downstream on the North China Plain, had been shrinking for decades. Agricultural water extraction, upstream damming, and declining rainfall had reduced what was once a vast wetland to a fraction of its historical extent. The lake's ecology -- reed beds, migratory bird habitat, freshwater fisheries -- was deteriorating. In 2008, engineers began building a canal connecting Xidayang Reservoir with the larger Wangkuai Reservoir to the west. When the link was completed in 2012, it created a system that could coordinate water releases from both reservoirs, directing them downstream to Baiyangdian on a managed schedule. The connected system now provides the lake with the water volumes it needs to sustain its ecological function, turning two independent dams into a single instrument of environmental management.
From altitude, the geography that makes Xidayang Reservoir necessary becomes immediately clear. The Taihang Mountains rise to the west, catching moisture-laden air and channeling rainfall into steep valleys. The North China Plain stretches endlessly to the east, flat and dry, where more than 100 million people depend on water that originates in those same mountains. Xidayang sits precisely at the transition, impounding water at the point where mountain streams emerge onto the plain. Tang County, where the reservoir is located, is named for the ancient state of Tang, reflecting a continuity of settlement in a place where water availability has always determined where people live. The reservoir's roughly 60-year history is the latest chapter in a much older story of human efforts to capture, store, and redirect the water that flows from Hebei's western highlands.
Xidayang Reservoir is located at 38.74°N, 114.78°E in Baoshui Township, Tang County, Baoding, Hebei Province. The reservoir appears as a substantial body of water at the foot of the Taihang Mountains, on the western edge of the North China Plain. Wangkuai Reservoir is visible approximately 30 km to the west. Nearest major airport is Shijiazhuang Zhengding International Airport (ICAO: ZBSJ), approximately 85 km to the south. Best viewed at 8,000-12,000 feet AGL where both reservoirs and their mountain backdrop are visible simultaneously.