Numerous lakes are shrinking, owing to climate change and human activities, releasing pollutants from dried lake beds as dust aerosols. The health risks remain unclear. Recently, Poyang and Dongting lakes faced record droughts, exposing 99 % and 88 % of their areas. We show that lake bed dust can raise PM₁₀ to 637.5 μg m^-³ and exceed non-carcinogenic (HQ = 4.13) and Cr carcinogenic  (approx. 2.10 × 10⁻⁶)  risk thresholds, posing growing health threats.