Dongting Lake, the second largest freshwater lake in China, covers an area of 2,579.2 square kilometers and is known as the "Kidney of the Yangtze River". Since the implementation of the national policy pertaining to a "ten-year fishing ban" in the Yangtze River, aquatic biodiversity in the lake has been effectively restored.

Gradually, the once ordinary fishermen have now become “patrolling fishermen” to protect the aquatic environment of the lake. They diligently patrol the entire lake and its surrounding embankment, attentively observe every ship on the surface, and silently protect its ecological health, both day and night. Thanks to these fishermen’s unceasing efforts as well as the constant aid from the fishery department, the damaged aquatic life in the lake is now slowly recovering. Aquatic species like swordfish that disapeeared for many years has now returned to the lake. Finless purpoise, a national first-class protected animal, has also been spotted many times in the area.

However, with the improvement of aquatic life in Dongting Lake, illegal fishing has slowly emerged. Dongting Lake area has a wide lake surface, long coastline, complex climate environment, and limited number of patrolling personnel and resources. These factors have greatly exerted pressure on the implementation of the fishing ban.

At the beginning of 2021, Dahua aided the construction of an intelligent fishery management solution in the lake. This system utilizes digital intelligence to curb illegal fishing, realizing automatic prevention of illegal fishing, intelligent early warning of illegal vessels and closed-loop process management. It significantly improved the handling of detected illegal activities, and greatly helped the fishery department in carrying out intelligent and refined fishing prohibition in the area.

Illegal fishing often occurs at night. Small fishing boats are not easy to detect, which makes it difficult for patrolling personnel to act in time. With the solution in place, the discovery time is greatly shortened with the use of thermal imaging technology. Even in a dark night, thermal cameras can still determine the real-time location of an illegal fishing vessel, and detect the ship’s direction and its surroundings, realizing accurate prediction and early warning.

Using thermal hybrid PTZ cameras (TPC-PT8X21C), remote inspection of the lake surface is carried out in the important natural waters of the South Dongting Lake – the Xiangjiang River, Zijiang River, and the inner lake. These devices significantly reduce the manpower needed to patrol the lake around the clock, and relatively eases the workload of personnel. With the help of Dahua’s fishery management platform, operators can detect the real-time situation of the important zones in the lake, actively safeguarding its aquatic resources by detecting illegal fishing boats in time.

Over the past nine months, the system has found more than 150 illegal fishing activities in Dongting Lake,  effectively protecting the safety of its aquatic resources and marine environment. Also, it has greatly reduced the cost of manual patrolling and effectively improved its efficiency by utilizing digital intelligence.

The solution created a “net" of fishery management based on the sensing capability of IoT. Through this network, staff can intuitively view real-time images, early warning information, and illegal fishing situation in the restricted fishing areas, which can help patrolling personnel in their decision making. It can also timely detect other abnormalities on the surface including illegal sand mining, floating debris, and water pollution.

Overall, the intelligent fishery management system developed by Dahua has effectively helped protect the aquatic resources in Dongting Lake. It can trace the source of illegal fishing activities and realize intelligent monitoring from fishing, debarkation, transportation, to sales, effectively curbing illegal fishing activities in the lake. What’s more, it helps maintain the natural growth of fishes and other aquatic resources inhabiting the Dongting Lake as well as the Yangtze River.