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    A group of Chinese egrets on Fantuozi Island in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning Province Photo: Courtesy of Changhai County People's Government
At 5 am, Wang Piyu, deputy director of the Changhai County Natural Resources Affairs Service Center, sets out by patrol boat for Fantuozi Island, a core breeding site for Chinese egrets in the Changshan Archipelago, Northeast China's Liaoning Province. The island has no permanent residents.
About 100 meters from the island, Wang turns off the engine and reminds accompanying researchers to keep their voices low to avoid disturbing the nesting birds.
Stepping onto the island, they walk along paths covered with vines. Scattered across the rocky slopes are nests measuring 40 to 50 centimeters in diameter. Inside, fluffy chicks huddle together among soft grass woven into nests, while adult birds perch high in the trees, watching cautiously.
"This was not what the island looked like 10 years ago," Wang recalled. "People used to collect eggs here, and coastal aquaculture polluted the tidal flats. Many parts of the island were bare, leaving little vegetation for birds to nest."
The recovery of Changshan Archipelago, however, has turned the remote archipelago into an important link in global conservation efforts.
At the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Busan, South Korea, the boundary modification of the Migratory Bird Sanctuaries along the Coast of Yellow Sea-Bohai Gulf of China was approved, officially adding the Changshan Archipelago to the World Heritage site. 
The expansion further strengthens the integrity of the serial natural heritage site, following a previous update in 2024, and highlights China's efforts to integrate coastal ecosystem conservation, according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.
Behind the World Heritage recognition lies years of conservation work involving local authorities and island residents.
    An aerial view of Changshan Archipelago in Liaoning Province Photo: VCGBuilding a bird haven
Located in the northern Yellow Sea off Dalian, the Changshan Archipelago sits along a key route of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, providing an essential stopover where tens of millions of migratory birds replenish their energy during their journeys across the Bohai Sea.
The newly added area covers more than 4,900 hectares and is home to more than 140 recorded bird species, including the Chinese egret and black-faced spoonbill, both listed as China's national first-class protected animals.
In 2015, more than 300 Chinese egrets arrived in Changhai county. After discovering the birds, local authorities introduced a series of protective measures, including establishing patrol teams and installing remote monitoring systems to reduce human disturbance.
However, the growing bird population also created new challenges.
Less than half of Fantuozi Island was covered by shrubs, which serve as the nesting grounds for the egrets. Additionally, the island's poor soil and acidification caused by years of accumulated bird droppings had led to the withering and death of some shrubs in recent years.
From 2022, the county launched an ecological restoration project, replacing surface soil with fertile earth and planting more than 2,200 shrubs.
The efforts helped restore the breeding habitat. The number of Chinese egrets on the island has since recovered, with this year's population estimated at about 3,500, including around 1,500 adults and nearly 2,000 chicks, according to Lü Yongquan, director of Changhai county's natural resources bureau.
"Chinese egrets are highly sensitive to water quality, vegetation and human disturbance. Their return to breed here is a sign that the marine ecosystem has recovered and is thriving," Lü told the Global Times.
From fishermen to guardians
Conservation in Changhai is not only carried out by authorities. Local communities have also gradually become part of the protection network.
Authorities have expanded public awareness campaigns and strengthened patrols. Because most of the Changshan Archipelago is uninhabited, drones, fixed-point infrared cameras, and on-site inspections are used to monitor the islands and reefs around the clock. 
Many fishermen who once relied on the sea for their livelihoods now help protect it.
During the peak breeding season from April to July, regular marine patrols are carried out to protect nesting sites and prevent illegal egg collection and habitat damage. Local bird conservation groups and research institutions have also joined the efforts, while fishermen have taken on new roles as volunteer guardians of the islands. 
Across Changhai county, many fishermen now actively participate in coastal patrols to help protect the archipelago's biodiversity.
For Li Qingsen, a 50-year-old island native and member of the county's forest fire brigade, protecting the birds has become a way of life.
From spring to autumn, 20 team members take turns staying on Fantuozi Island in pairs to protect the birds from disturbance.
Life on the 0.08-square-kilometer island is far from easy. There are no freshwater sources or docks. Patrol workers carry large barrels of water and wade ashore from boats anchored offshore. Instant noodles are often their main food because they require little preparation and some water.
Their work is closely tied to the seasonal cycle of the birds. Each April, thousands of Chinese egrets arrive in the archipelago from Southeast Asia to breed and rear their young, staying until early September before migrating south for the winter. 
At present, young egrets are already practicing flight above the treetops. By autumn, they will join their parents in a southward migration.
For Wang, who has spent half of his life guarding Fantuozi Island, the World Heritage recognition is both a homecoming for the birds and a reward for years of protection. "Now, it is a home for the birds, and a reward for all the years we have spent protecting it."
。         The user interface of Ningbo's reservoir dispatching software, which is powered by an AI forecasting model. Photo: CCTV News
From AI-powered flood forecasting and digital twins to smart reservoir management, phased-array radar networks and ground-based remote sensing systems, a new generation of high-tech equipment and systems is helping Chinese cities sharpen weather forecasts, improve flood control and make faster, more precise decisions to stay one step ahead of extreme weather.
In Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang Province, where water resources are relatively limited, the calculation of reservoir water release is tricky. If you release too much, the city could find itself short of water after the storm, however if you release too little, the reservoir may struggle to accommodate the floodwater brought by torrential rain. 
Finding that balance is now increasingly a job for AI.
"The balance point has to be continuously analyzed and calculated by the dispatching software," Jiang Yutian, a department director at the Ningbo Water Conservancy & Hydropower Planning and Design Institute Co., Ltd., said, according to CCTV News. 
At the heart of the system is an AI forecasting model that dramatically speeds up calculations.
For the Yongjiang River basin, running a complete flood-control scenario used to take five to 10 minutes. The new model can complete the calculation in just five to 10 seconds, cutting the time required to around one-sixtieth of the previous level.
Using rainfall forecasts and changing water levels, the model refreshes its recommendations every five minutes, calculating how much water should be released, how much can be stored later and how much reservoir capacity will remain when the flood peak arrives. Dispatchers can then adjust water releases in real time, per CCTV's report.
AI is not working alone. A digital-twin dispatching platform allows reservoirs to be managed together rather than individually. Across Ningbo's 16 major medium- and large-sized flood-control reservoirs, operators can see in real time which are approaching capacity and which still have room to take more water.
Hundreds of kilometers inland, another city is using a different technological set of technologies to tackle the same challenge of weather uncertainty.
Nanyang in Central China's Henan Province, which lies in a basin surrounded by mountains on three sides, has experienced widespread heavy rainfall since Monday under the influence of Typhoon Dolphin. Its geography leaves the city exposed to a combination of risks, including urban waterlogging, flooding in small and medium-sized rivers and inundation of farmland.
To track storms more precisely, the Nanyang meteorological authority has deployed a network of four newly installed X-band dual-polarization phased-array radars, together with an S-band dual-polarization radar and a ground-based vertical remote sensing system, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
The equipment allows forecasters to closely track the development and movement of convective clouds and identify areas at risk of intense rainfall earlier.
The city's meteorological authority has also integrated weather data with a citywide video monitoring network covering vulnerable locations such as underpasses, tunnels, river embankments and mountainous villages. This allows forecasters to compare what instruments are detecting with what is actually happening on the ground.
Together, the approaches in Ningbo and Nanyang offer a glimpse of how China's weather-disaster prevention efforts are becoming increasingly digital and intelligent, using faster calculations, denser observations and real-time data to bring greater certainty to decisions made in the face of uncertain weather.
Global Times 
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