Baiguishan Reservoir is located on the main stream of Shahe River in the southwest of Pingdingshan City. There is Zhaopingtai Reservoir in the upstream, with a controlled area of ??1,380 square kilometers.
In June 1954, the Provincial Huaihe River Control Headquarters organized survey and design, and in November 1958, the Henan Baiguishan Reservoir Engineering Headquarters was established. The reservoir is designed for a flood that occurs once in a century and is calibrated for a flood that occurs once in a thousand years. The dam is a homogeneous earth dam with a height of 22.6 meters and a main dam length of 1,470 meters. The auxiliary dam is 16,200 meters long. There is a floodgate on Baigui Mountain between the two dams. Design and construction at the same time. In 1958, 65,000 migrant workers from Shangshui, Fugou and Linying counties and provincial professional teams were mobilized to start construction. In 1959, another 100,000 migrant workers from nine counties were mobilized, and it was basically completed in September 1960. After the water was impounded in the same year, drifting soil appeared behind the dam and the cultivated land turned into a swamp. It was also found that the flood design was too small, the gate floor was too high, and the discharge volume was small. In the spring of 1963, the flood gate was dismantled, the gate floor was lowered by 5 meters, and the discharge capacity was increased to 6,450 cubic meters per second. On April 21, 1964, there was a heavy rainstorm. The cofferdam overflowed and burst, and the reservoir emptied. This affected the construction progress and caused the clay pavement to dry out and crack due to exposure to the sun. In order to solve the problem of swampiness of cultivated land behind the dam, a 13-kilometer-long diversion ditch was added behind the dam, 326 decompression wells were built, and the slope protection of the dam was partially renovated. It was completed in August 1966.
After the flood in August 1975, the hydrological review showed that the flood control standards were still low. From 1976 to 1977, reinforcements were carried out based on the once-in-a-millennium review standards. The dam was increased by 1 meter, and the wave wall was set up to 1.2 meters high, with a total storage capacity of 640 million cubic meters. An explosive chamber was built in the auxiliary dam. When floods exceed the standard, the auxiliary dam will be blasted to release the flood. The total investment in the above project is 99.0705 million yuan.
In 1983, the reservoir basically realized the automation of flood prevention and forecasting. On average, it can supply 68.7 million cubic meters of water to Pingdingshan City every year, and the reservoir water can supply an irrigation area of ??500,000 acres. Zhaotai Irrigation Area is located east of Zhaotai Reservoir in Lushan County and is supplied by Zhaotai Reservoir. The benefit area includes the suburbs of Lushan, Baofeng, Yexian and Pingdingshan, with a total controlled area of ??788 square kilometers. The design flow rate at the head of the canal is 70.23 cubic meters/second, the designed irrigation area is 764,600 acres, and the effective irrigation area in 1987 was 418,000 acres. The irrigation area is divided into north and south irrigation areas with Shahe River as the boundary. Construction of the Northern Irrigation District started in 1966 and was completed in 1972. The irrigation area starts from Zhaopingtai Reservoir in the west, extends to Xuezhuang, a suburb of Pingdingshan City, in the east, borders Ru River in the north and Shah River in the south. The Beigan Canal is 36.35 kilometers long, with a designed flow rate of 38.58 cubic meters per second and a designed irrigation area of ??450,100 acres. In Yangzhuang, Baofeng County, it is divided into two branch canals, the first branch is 11.3 kilometers long, the second branch is 22.2 kilometers long, and there are 19 branch canals. There are 565 buildings of various types built in the irrigation area, and some of the supporting buildings of Dounong Canal are very imperfect. Construction of the Southern Irrigation District started in 1969 and was completed in 1976. The irrigation area starts from Zhaopingtai Reservoir in the west, ends at Xu (Chang) South (Yang) Highway in the east, borders the Shah River in the north, and connects with the Baiguishan South Irrigation Area, with mountains on the south bank. The southern main canal is 64.8 kilometers long, with a designed flow rate of 31.66 cubic meters per second, a designed irrigation area of ??314,500 acres, and 11 branch canals. There are 1,954 buildings of various types built in the irrigation area, with a supporting Dounong Canal length of 1,383 kilometers and 16,713 buildings.