Construction has begun on a center to facilitate academic research on Poyang Lake, China's largest freshwater lake and an internationally important wetland, in Jiangxi Province.

The center, in Xingzi county, on the northwestern side of the lake, will be completed in three years.

It will comprise a station and observation outpost that would track the impact of the Three Gorges Project on the environment of the Yangtze River in its lower reaches, and a facility for the prevention and control of water-borne diseases.

(China Daily October 25, 2005)