Crescent Lake "increasingly plumps up",with the deepest part reaching 3.2 meters

 You can't imagine the beauty of Dunhuang until you get there! As one of the "Eight Scenes of Dunhuang", the Crescent Lake in Mingsha has long been dubbed as "a unique northern-frontier scenery", and is also known as "the First Spring in the Desert". Yet since the 1970s, with increasing population, extending planting area and overexploited groundwater in Dunhuang, the water level of Crescent Lake has dropped sharply, even on the verge of drying up. 

Thanks to the later successive implementation of Crescent Lake "water replenishment plans", in which water is drawn from the Danghe River 10 kilometers away from the Crescent Lake to replenish groundwater for the latter, making the once slimming "crescent" plumps up gradually. 

Up to now, the water level at the deepest part of Crescent Lake has risen from 2.2 meters a few years ago to 3.2 meters, and the average water depth from 1.35 meters to about 1.60 meters. With the water storage operation of the Crescent Lake Water Replenishment Project in the right river course of Danghe River for about 270 days every year, the water depth of Crescent Lake has been obviously increased, and the "First Spring in the Desert" has managed to bid farewell to its extinction crisis.