Leadership Insights | Illustrated Lectures:Dujiangyan A Millennia-old Water Management Project Carrying Eastern Wisdom

Dujiangyan is the world’s only ancient water management system still in full operation today, a timeless masterpiece of harmony between humans and nature. It embodies the Chinese nation’s spirit of resilience, innovation, and reverence for the natural world.

For centuries, the surging Min River has nourished the vast land of Bashu (today’s Sichuan). Dujiangyan embodies time-honored Eastern water‑management wisdom etched into mountains and rivers. More than an ancient hydraulic structure, it stands as a millennia-old ecological testament to the Chinese people’s philosophy of working with nature and living in harmony with it.

As the Min River rushes out of mountain gorges, Mount Yulei rises steeply along its banks, creating a long-standing geographical predicament for Sichuan. During flood seasons, swollen river waters were blocked by the mountain, triggering devastating deluges that submerged farmlands and villages and displaced local residents. Just across the mountain, however, the Chengdu Plain suffered chronic drought. Cracked soil and withering crops often brought a poor harvest. For generations, Bashu’s early inhabitants suffered these extreme swings between flood and drought. In 256 BC, Li Bing, governor of Shu Prefecture, led local people to launch this monumental water-control project.

Faced with the solid rocky barrier of Mount Yulei, Li Bing adopted an ancient technique of fire heating and water dousing. Workers heated rockcliffs and then poured cold water over them. Using thermal expansion and contraction to crack the bedrock, they carved out the crucial Baopingkoupassage, channeling river water precisely onto the plain and ending the age-old drought. Meanwhile, leveraging indigenous materials, ancient people built the Yuzui dyke in the river’s heart using bamboo cages filled with pebbles. They pioneered the ingenious “60-40” water diversion method: in flood seasons, 60 percent of the river’s flow runs into the outer river for flood mitigation; in dry seasons, 60 percent flows into the inner river to irrigate farmlands.

Yuzui for water division, Feishayan for sediment discharge, and Baopingkou for water regulation togetherconstitute a self-contained, self-operating water management system. Requiring no human intervention, it automatically diverts floodwaters in flood seasons and supplies irrigation in dry seasons, sustaining vast swathes of fertile farmlands across the Chengdu Plain.

Over more than 2,200 years, this dam-free water management system has kept flowing. From generation to generation, the Bashu people have upheld the ancient maxim:“deepen the dredgingand keep the dykes low.”Regular annual maintenance has preserved this time-tested watercontrol wisdomacross millennia. By harnessing water in alignment with natural forces rather than against them, the barren land once stricken by floods and droughts was transformed into a land of plenty, where water resources are well managed and people live in peace and prosperity.

The Min River has nurtured a millennia-old civilization. What flows through Dujiangyan is not only life-giving water for farmland, but also the Eastern wisdom of respecting nature and pursuing practical solutions. In 2000, Dujiangyan was inscribed on the World Heritage List as a rare living hydraulic engineering masterpiecearound the globe.

Today, the millennia-old Dujiangyan irrigation system is revitalized through research-oriented education and digital exhibitions. With its enduring vitality, this World Heritage siteis showcasing Eastern ecological wisdom to the world, radiating timeless brilliance in the contemporary era.

Executive Producer:Yu Li

Creative Planner:Ding Suyun

Copywriter: Cai Bin

Produced by China Xi Theory Studio