公元1542年,明朝宰相张居正尽堵荆江北岸诸口,荆江大堤由此连为一体。1860年、1870年发生两次特大洪水,藕池和松滋相继溃决,荆江余洪全部涌入洞庭,随洪水而带来的泥沙也不断增加,大部分留在了湖盆。洞庭泥沙主要来自长江,自荆江三日入湖沙量占总量的80%。1951～1998年的47年中,三口输沙67亿吨,四水输沙16亿吨,沉积湖内62亿吨,每年平均淤积泥沙1.28亿吨,47年间河湖平均淤高1.4米。 In 1542 AD, the prime minister of the Ming dynasty, Zhang Juzheng, tried to block all the mouths of the Jingjiang River north bank and thus the Jingjiang Levee was connected as a whole. In 1860, two extraordinary floods occurred in 1870, and Ouchi Lake and Songzi Lake went down in succession. All of Jinghong’s flood surges into the Dongting Lake. Sediment brought by floods also kept increasing, most of which remained in the lake basin. Dongting sediment mainly from the Yangtze River, since the three days of Jingjiang into the lake accounted for 80% of the total. During the 1951-1987 47-year period, the three ports transported 6.7 billion tons of sediment and the 1.6 billion tons of silt and sediment. Sediments were deposited in the lake at 6.2 billion tons, with an average of 128 million tons of sediment each year. The average siltation of rivers and lakes was 1.4 meters in 47 years.