Yangtze Fishing Ban Assessment Finds Bigger Fish, More Species and 1,426 Porpoises

Five years of recovery, with more work beneath the surface

China's Yangtze River basin recorded 351 native fish species between 2021 and 2025, 43 more than during 2017 to 2020, while its endangered finless porpoise population reached about 1,426. A new assessment of the country's fishing ban connects those gains with a much wider transformation: more than 231,000 fishers leaving capture fishing, expanded pension protection, coordinated enforcement and changes in how the fishing industry earns its income.

The midterm research assessment, published in The Innovation Water on August 31, 2026, examines the first five years of a policy fully implemented on January 1, 2021. Average fish length increased from 21.7 centimeters in 2021 to 24.3 centimeters in 2024, and the authors report that fish stock abundance more than doubled relative to the ban's initiation.

The recovery is uneven. Some river sections and lakes have improved faster than others, while broken habitat connections, altered water flows and extreme weather continue to affect aquatic life. The researchers argue that the remaining five years should give greater attention to restoring habitats alongside maintaining fishing restrictions.

The study brings ecological monitoring together with the experiences of former fishers. Its central finding is that river protection depends on several things working together: less fishing, reliable alternative livelihoods, cooperation across administrative boundaries and economic activity that puts less pressure on wild fish.

What the ban covers and how researchers measured change

The restrictions cover the Yangtze mainstem and estuary, Poyang and Dongting lakes, eight key tributaries and 332 aquatic protected areas. The regulated waters include approximately 24,800 kilometers of river reaches, 9,800 square kilometers of lakes and reservoirs, and more than 4,000 square kilometers of estuarine waters.

Researchers used 108 national aquatic monitoring stations, with sampling in June and October from 2021 through 2025. They combined those observations with industry statistics, enforcement records and a continuing survey of 3,881 registered former fishers, including information about their households.

An institutional research release identifies Qin Li, Jia Kuang and Juan Du as the first authors, and Xinbin Duan and Haijun Wang as corresponding authors. Their assessment covers ecology, society, the economy and governance, allowing changes in fish populations to be examined alongside changes on shore.

The research is observational: it tracks changes over time across waters covered by the policy. With restrictions extending across most key Yangtze waters, the team had no closely comparable river area without the ban. The ecological, livelihood and industry measures also use different starting years, reflecting when suitable records were available.

How the first five years unfolded

China introduced the restrictions in stages, beginning with protected waters before extending them across the principal regulated river system. The monitoring record then captured both rapid early changes and slower progress.

• 2020: Fishing closures took effect in 332 aquatic protected areas, and withdrawal from regulated capture fishing was completed by the end of the year.
• January 1, 2021: The ban began across the Yangtze basin's key waters for a provisional period of 10 years.
• 2021 to 2022: Much of the recorded increase in average fish length occurred, while fish biomass per monitoring unit declined in 2022.
• 2023 to 2024: Biomass recovered, but average fish length entered a plateau.
• 2025: The monitoring period ended with 351 native fish species recorded across five years and an estimated 1,426 finless porpoises.
• August 31, 2026: The Innovation Water published the assessment.

At a January 30 briefing held by the State Council Information Office, an official from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs also presented the 351 species total and the porpoise estimate. The ministry described the first five years as a period of positive progress, accompanied by support measures for 231,000 former fishers.

Bigger fish and a broader community

Average fish length increased by 2.6 centimeters between 2021 and 2024. Larger individuals among the four major Chinese carp species became relatively more abundant early in the ban, before their share stabilized. Years of intensive fishing had previously favored a community with smaller fish, because larger animals were repeatedly removed.

The species count rose from 308 during 2017 to 2020 to 351 during 2021 to 2025, an increase of 14%. The researchers describe patterns consistent with fish returning to waters where they had become scarce. Broader monitoring coverage and a greater chance of detecting rare species may also account for part of the increase.

Other diversity measures changed more gradually. The Shannon-Wiener index, which considers both the number of species and how evenly fish are distributed among them, showed a slight upward trend but remained generally stable. In practical terms, the expanding species list was accompanied by a broadly balanced community rather than a sudden concentration in a few species.

Fish size patterns also continued to shift from year to year. By the later monitoring years, fish of medium size dominated biomass. The researchers identify food availability, habitat capacity and competition among fish as factors that could influence how many larger animals the recovering river can support.

The food web is changing too

The average trophic level of the fish community rose from 3.03 to 3.09 between 2021 and 2024. Trophic level describes an animal's position in the food web: whether it mainly eats plants, animals that eat plants, or other predators. The study's average gives greater weight to species according to their representation in the community.

Secondary consumers increased from 65.2% to 78.5% of the community, a rise of 13.3 percentage points. Primary consumers fell from 32.9% to 19.2%. Together, those changes show a larger role for fish eating other animals or a mixture of plant and animal food.

Top predators remained scarce, although their abundance showed some recovery after a low point in 2022. The researchers also found more connections within the food web. For readers following recovery, this adds an important detail: the river is changing in the kinds of feeding relationships it supports, as well as in the number and size of fish.

Porpoises rise, while protected fish need habitat

The Yangtze finless porpoise population increased from approximately 1,012 in 2017 to 1,249 in 2022 and 1,426 in 2025. The latest estimate is 177 animals above the 2022 figure, an increase of about 14%. Compared with 2017, the population grew by 414, or roughly 41%.

The earlier porpoise population increase marked the first recorded rise since monitoring began. The latest figures extend that recovery for the Yangtze's last surviving river cetacean, the group of mammals that includes dolphins, porpoises and whales. The species remains critically endangered.

Monitoring in 2025 recorded three aquatic species under China's highest national protection category: the Yangtze finless porpoise, Chinese sturgeon and Yangtze sturgeon. It also recorded 12 species under the second protection category, four more than in 2022. Some rare and native fish reappeared in particular river sections, and some resumed natural reproduction.

The authors identify these species as priorities for the next phase. Removing fishing pressure gives animals more opportunity to survive, while suitable breeding areas, connected waterways and appropriate river flows help them complete their life cycles.

Why recovery varies between rivers and lakes

Dongting Lake's Index of Biotic Integrity rose from approximately 41.7 in 2021 to 60.6 in 2025, moving from a category described as relatively poor to moderate. The index combines biological measures to assess the condition of an aquatic ecosystem, rather like a health check built from the organisms living there.

The Chishui River remained in the good category at both ends of the monitoring period. Scores also increased in the Yangtze mainstem, Poyang Lake and several major tributaries, with different waters making different amounts of progress.

Water movement helps explain that variation. Hydrology means the timing, quantity and movement of water. Changes in river flow can affect spawning, feeding and access to shallow habitats. Limited connections between rivers and lakes can also restrict the routes fish need as they grow or reproduce.

Habitat fragmentation divides suitable living areas into separated pieces. The assessment identifies this problem, altered hydrology and climate extremes as continuing constraints. Its recommendation is management tailored to local conditions, with decisions adjusted as monitoring shows how each part of the basin responds.

What happened to the people who stopped fishing

More than 231,000 fishers and 111,000 boats left the capture fishery. Employment placement, pension insurance and social assistance accompanied that withdrawal, making the ban a major change in household livelihoods as well as environmental policy.

By 2025, 142,000 former fishers able to work had found new employment, according to the study. Some 220,000 eligible former fishers had enrolled in basic pension insurance, more than 60,000 had begun receiving pensions, and around 12,000 vulnerable fishers received subsistence allowances. These programs serve overlapping groups at different stages of working life.

The survey of 3,881 former fishers found that livelihoods stabilized after 2022. Some 52.8% of their households had at least two income sources, and household income per person approached or exceeded the local rural average.

Older former fishers still face a risk of low income, according to Fudan's research summary. Continued livelihood support therefore remains part of sustaining the restrictions. The fisheries economy has also shifted toward aquaculture, which raises aquatic animals in managed conditions, and recreational fisheries, creating alternatives to commercial capture from natural waters.

Chongqing shows how river protection reaches beyond fishing

Chongqing offers a local view of the wider changes taking place alongside the ban. Monitoring recorded 121 native fish species in the municipality's Yangtze main channel, 52 more than before the restrictions. A fish survey also rediscovered the rare Ochetobius elongatus after years without a recorded Yangtze sighting.

The municipality's main Yangtze channel maintained Class II water quality under China's national surface water standards for nine consecutive years. All nationally monitored sections in the city met good or excellent standards for three consecutive years. River protection there includes pollution control, riverbank restoration and action against illegal occupation, dumping, construction and sand mining.

Under the river chief system, designated officials take responsibility for particular waterways. Chongqing's network covers more than 5,300 rivers and 3,075 reservoirs. Its 18,300 river chiefs made over 5.36 million patrol visits and resolved more than 310,000 problems over a decade. A digital platform reduced the time needed to handle reported problems from 10 days to two.

Cooperation also crosses municipal and provincial boundaries. An agreement signed in July 2023 between towns in Chongqing and Sichuan established quarterly joint patrols and cleanups along the Xinsheng River, alongside water quality monitoring and shared alerts. In Zhongxian, an ecological compensation mechanism covers seven rivers crossing administrative boundaries, distributing responsibility for their protection.

Restoration has changed public access to the waterfront too. A former wharf in Zhongxian reopened in September 2025 as the 217,000 square meter Juruo Zhongzhoudu park and leisure destination. The project restored 3.2 kilometers of riverbank, created a 12,000 square meter wetland and planted more than 20 native plant species. An agreement directs part of its operating revenue into river management, restoration and cleanup.

The next phase combines enforcement with restoration

Across the basin, joint enforcement uses video surveillance, drones, radar and patrols assigned to defined areas. Administrative cases involving illegal fishing, criminal fisheries cases and illegal sales cases all declined between 2021 and 2025. The assessment also identifies the continuing cost of enforcement as a pressure on implementation.

The authors' recommendation brings the ecological and social findings together. Maintaining protection requires effective enforcement and dependable livelihoods, while further recovery requires better habitat conditions. A river section with damaged breeding grounds may need a different response from a lake with poor connections to the main channel.

The research team, led by first authors Qin Li, Jia Kuang and Juan Du, sets out that priority in the study's abstract:

The next five years should prioritize integrated aquatic ecosystem restoration and habitat protection, the ultimate objective of the YTFB, through spatially differentiated adaptive management.

The remaining work is concrete: restore key habitats, improve river and lake connections, maintain support for former fishers and use continued monitoring to direct protection where recovery is weakest. The first five years show gains in fish abundance, diversity and porpoise numbers. The next phase must support the places and people that allow those gains to continue.

Key Points

• Monitoring recorded 351 native fish species during 2021 to 2025, up from 308 during 2017 to 2020.
• Average fish length increased from 21.7 centimeters in 2021 to 24.3 centimeters in 2024.
• The finless porpoise population reached about 1,426 in 2025, up by 177 from 2022.
• More than 231,000 fishers and 111,000 boats left the capture fishery, supported by employment and social protection programs.
• Recovery varies across the basin, with habitat fragmentation, altered flows and climate extremes continuing to affect progress.
• The assessment recommends locally tailored habitat restoration alongside enforcement and lasting livelihood support.