China to improve flood defenses

Flood prevention projects on major rivers across China have performed badly, failing to meet national standards, Li Guoying, vice-minister of water resources on the International Yellow River Forum in Zhengzhou, Henan province said on Tuesday.

But a flood and disaster prevention system due for completion in 2020 should improve the situation, he added.

Dikes along the Jingjiang part of the Yangtze River and lower reaches of the Yellow River have performed relatively well, protecting the area below them from major floods, which occur once every 100 years as a result of the Three Gorges project and Xiaolangdi Reservoir. However, flood prevention measures on other major rivers, including the Pearl and the Songhua rivers, are insufficient to resist large floods, he said.

Small rivers across China are particularly prone to flooding due to illegal activity along them and poor defenses, he said.

Li pledged to strengthen flood defenses in the next 10 years and to improve the situation along small rivers with floodable areas larger than 200 square kilometers by 2015.

A high concentration of rain between July and September, when 60 to 80 percent of total rainfall occurs in China, is a major factor in frequent flooding and droughts across the country, the vice minister said.

In the last 60 years China has built more than 294,000 kilometers of dikes and 89,000 reservoirs, which protect in excess of 600 million people and 467 million hectares of farmland from flooding.