The 13th World Lake Conference was kicked off Sunday in Wuhan, a city at the confluence of the Yangtze River and its tributary Hanjiang River in central China's Hubei Province.

More than 1,000 environmental experts, scholars and government officials from more than 40 countries are attending the conference, which will last through Thursday.

The conference will focus on the lake eco-system restoration. An exhibition showing many lake cities' efforts in combating the water contamination also opened here on Sunday.

More than 450 people are going to deliver academic reports and make lectures, focusing on the impact of global warming on lakes, strategies and policies on management of lake water environment, approaches to pollution control and ecological conservation concerning lakes.

Participants to the conference will also exchange views on sustainable use of lakes and public participation in this regard.

The World Lake Conference, initiated by the International Lake Environment Committee, was first held in 1984 in Japan. Since then, it has been held biennially in wide-ranging locations including the United States, Hungary, China, Italy, Japan, Argentina, Denmark, Kenya and India.

China previously hosted the conference in 1990 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.

The host city Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, has 166 lakes, 272 reservoirs and 165 rivers or streams, which cover more than a quarter of its total land area. It is called "the city of a hundred lakes".