A boat is stranded on the grass-covered riverbed of the Poyang Lake, which has been hit by drought, in China's Jiangxi province on April 17.

Poyang Lake, once the largest freshwater lake in China, is fast drying-up and might soon become a prairie or a desert like the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan.

Chinese scientists are reporting with alarm that more parts of the lake have dried up, leaving huge swathes of grassland in areas once inundated by up to 82 feet of water. That depth has been reduced on average to only 26 feet and even this level is in danger since water levels have fallen continuously.