Abstract:There are 2 759 lakes (>1km 2) in China with a total area of 91 020 km 2,which makes up 0.95% of the total area of China. Undoubtedly, they provide one kind of important fresh water resources. But, recently, a more and more urgent problem lies ahead of us, that is, the ecological environments of lakes become deteriorated and the utilizable lake fresh water resources grow downward. In arid-semiarid inland area, such as west and northwest of China, climate warming and excessive exploitation of fresh water resources for irrigation have caused falling down of lake level, salting of lake water and what is worse, desiccating of some lakes. In the area of east China with dense population, huge influx of pollutants and nutrient matters from industrial discharge, over-applying of agriculture chemicals and domestic sewage has led to serious lake water contamination and eutrophication with the result of shortage of drinking water source . Plundered fishery has destroyed lake ecological environment critically. In the area of middle and lower reaches of Yangtzi River, Many lakes have been shrinking because of being silted by deposits from soil erosion of the upper reach. Farther, they have been occupied by reclaiming lands from lakes. What must be paid enough attention to is that all the severe situations above mentioned have already become the restrictive factors for sustainable development of local economy and society. Some suggestions for lake environment protection and improvement have been proposed in this paper.