十八、十九世紀，兩湖平原的垸田高度發展，阻礙河湖水系的暢通，導致水患日益嚴重，引起當地官員為文闡明維護水利環境的重要性。清廷認知環境破壞的危機後，即頒布禁垸令限制開墾垸田，刨毀非法私垸，以及加強官吏的責任考成。其次，官僚士紳也闡發有關環境保護之論述，大抵有：大量築垸導致洪水為患；毀林開山造成水土流失，也帶來水患；栽植柳樹以護隄保垸；禁毀圍垸以挽救水利生態；嚴禁開山乃治江之根本。 最後，他們的努力未竟全功，但仍值得人們去紀實和肯定。

In the 18th、 19th century, rvier-lakeside farm (垸田) had been highly developed at Dongting Lake and Yangtse-Han River plains (兩湖平原). This circumstance obstructed the flow of river system and caused the floods getting worse day by day. For solving the problems, local government officials wrote document to emperor to expound the importance of maintaining hydraulic environment. Emperor realized the problems as well. Therefore they declared bans and destroying some illegal river-lakeside farm. In addition, they also enhanced obligations to all government officials. The second, most of the officials emphasized the significance of environmental protection and pointed out that over-cultivating river-lakeside farm resulted in floods, and scaling forests down bring the disadvantage of mudflows and floods also. In order to avoid expanding damage seriously, these officials suggested planting willows to preserve embankment, destroying riverside farm to preserve hydraulic ecology, and strictly forbidding reclaiming mountains to preserve the source of rivers. These opinions and suggestions did not meet with success in the end; however, their efforts were still worth being recorded and confirmed by researchers in the later generation.