Over the past several centuries, many lakes in the Yunnan Plateau disappeared or are disappearing due to climate change and human activities; the developments of these lakes are thus crucial for understanding their evolutions and underlying causes. Here we present a near 260-year history of water area changes in Lake Zhehai, a disappearing lake in northeastern Yunnan of Southwest China, based on historical documents such as local and regional annals and gazetteers, water conservancy records, and old maps using GIS and remote sensing techniques, to identify the dominant drivers of the lake disappearing. Results show that the reconstructed water area of Lake Zhehai was ca. 1500, 710, 370, 340, and 110 ha in 1761, 1912, 1935, 1950, and 1975 AD; this indicates that Lake Zhehai experienced three-phase lake evolution over the past 260 years, i.e., large lake in 1761–1920 AD, shrinking lake in 1921–1980 AD, and disappearing lake since 1981. Significant changes in the water area of Lake Zhehai were mainly attributed to both climate change and human activities, especially human activities as dominant drivers during the last two phases of lake evolution. Our findings provide a reference for both understanding the driving mechanisms of large shallow lake evolution during historical times in Yunnan, as well as assessing strategies of lake environmental protection under global warming and increasing human activities.
Shen et al. (2026) studied this question.