Jinci's Eternal Spring: How Water Revived, Trees Preserved

In the Book of Songs, China's oldest poetry collection written between the 11th and 6th centuries BCE, there is a line: "May you be forever blessed with never-ending youth." The line was inscribed on a plaque above a spring at the Jinci Temple. The spring is called Nanlao, the "Never Aging Spring."

For more than 2,000 years, its water never stopped and nourished the region. Northern Wei geographer Li Daoyuan (466 or 472-527) recorded that the spring "never dries up in great drought, never freezes in bitter winter, irrigating a hundred hectares of farmland."

Li Ruiling, a young guide at the Jinci Museum, took Muhammad Waseem Rasheed, a Pakistani doctoral student at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, to the Nanlao Spring. "This spring has been recorded in texts for over 2,000 years," she said. "It is mentioned in the Classic of Mountains and Seas." She pointed to the plaque above the pavilion with Chinese characters "Never Aging."

Rasheed dipped his hand into the water. It was cool. It remains around 17 degrees Celsius year-round.

The spring is fed by a karst aquifer beneath the mountains west of Taiyuan city. Beginning in the 1950s, coal mining expanded rapidly and industrial water extraction grew unchecked. In the peak years, groundwater supplied more than 80 percent of Taiyuan's water. The spring's flow diminished. By 1994, it stopped.

"How do you bring back a dead spring?" Rasheed asked.

Li took him to the Taiyuan Water Resources Management and Protection Center. Over three decades, the authorities took a series of measures. Between 2006 and 2014, a total of 275 coal mines in the Xishan area, a major industrial and mining zone, were consolidated into 53. In 2018, a remediation effort focused on 19 mines in the spring's core protection zone. Four were permanently closed and 15 had their mining boundaries redrawn.

Over the past decade, Taiyuan cut groundwater extraction significantly. Groundwater's share in the city's water supply fell from 83.5 percent to 25.9 percent. In 2019, nearly 100,000 residents across 61 villages were connected to the Yellow River water supply, ending their reliance on well water. More than 200,000 mu (1 mu equals 0.0667 hectares) of land in the Xishan area has been reforested. Forest coverage has risen from less than 20 percent to about 86 percent.

Liu Ning, an engineer, showed them the Jinci Temple Spring Catchment Digital Twin Platform, the first of its kind in China for spring protection. "This platform integrates six core modules — spring catchment dashboard, water resource monitoring, water resource management, four forecasting services, smart applications and digital foundation," Liu said. It has four forecasting services — prediction, early warning, pre-simulation and contingency planning.

The underground water system is mapped on screen. Sensors track precipitation, groundwater levels, river flow and mining drainage. "The entire spring catchment has formed a comprehensive water resources monitoring network covering precipitation, river channels, groundwater extraction and coal mining drainage," Liu said.

The turning point came in 2023. On May 14, the Nanlao Spring began to flow again. "At first it was just a trickle," Li said. In 2023, the spring flowed for 133 days. In 2024, it flowed for 273 days. In 2025, there was continuous flow through summer and for an entire annual cycle. As of March 2026, the water level had reached 804.69 meters, standing 2.10 meters above the spring outlet, a record high since the spring's revival.

The return of water did more than fill the spring. It revived the land. The same groundwater that feeds the Nanlao Spring also sustains the ancient trees that have stood at Jinci for centuries, including the Zhou Cypress, one of the "Three Wonders" of the Jinci Temple — a 3,000-year-old tree, still standing. In 2001, carbon-14 dating confirmed its age at more than 3,000 years.

The museum has implemented a "one-tree, one-ID" management system for each ancient tree. They use non-invasive radar to map the root system. They installed a rejuvenation trench to encourage new root growth. "The tree's roots were growing toward the Saint Mother's Hall," said Liu Xinyi, a technician from the Garden Department. "To protect both the tree and the building, we guided the roots in another direction."

In 2025, the Zhou Cypress was included in the first national list of protected ancient trees at cultural heritage sites.

At the end of the day, Rasheed stood by the spring. "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets," he said. "Protecting ecology is protecting development. China's ecological philosophy focuses on harmony between humans and nature. Economic development and environmental protection can go hand in hand."

The Zhou Cypress has stood for more than 3,000 years. The Nanlao Spring has flowed for more than two millennia. The Saint Mother's Hall has watched over both for nearly a thousand years. Time has not stopped here. While history keeps moving, technology empowers those who come after to see them all.

Source: Science and Technology Daily