In the past, China has experienced numerous floods. China is hit by floods fairly often because China contains of factors that support floods. Certain factors may include the fact that China has many rivers, heavy rainfall, and areas that have a low elevation. Floods usully occur in the middle or lower reaches of a major river such as the Yangtze River. The damage caused by each flood varies, since each flood comes at a different speed and with different amounts of water and debris. Each flood may kill between several thousand to several hundred thousand people. In the last decade, China has encountered numerous floods in the years 1900, 1911, 1915, 1931, 1935, 1950, 1954, 1959, 1991 and 1998. Most of these being floods from the Yangtze River.
Out ofthese floods, the flood in 1931 was one of the most severe. This flood took place along the Yangtze River, one of the biggest and mostly used river in China. It was during the summer between July and August. At this time huge amounts of crops were being grown on the wide farmlands located on the sides of the Yangtze. The flood was severe because it followed a prolonged drought which drained most of the land during 1928-1930. During the earlier two years alot of water was collected in the atmostphere, and soon was released in 1931 over the Yangtze. The return of the water came in the form of heavy precipitation.
The flood in 1931 had huge consequenses for China. It was a huge flood that destroyed 130,000 km2 of land, out of which 3.39 million ha was farmland. Due to the massive destruction to the countries farmland, all the crops that were planted in the summer of that year were destroyed. This ended up causing approximately an economic loss of 1.345 billion YinYuan (Chinese Money). This left thousands of people without money for the rest of the year, since farmers only made money when they harvest their crops.
Another consequence the flood brought was the fact that 1.8 million houses were underwater. This had a huge effect on the lives of people who lived in the area. 28.55 million people were affected in a certain way. Out of that 145,000 people were killed. Millions were left homeless, and most of them had nothing left exept the cloths they were wearing. This put China in alot of economical trouble.
Now, China has noticed that they have been hit by many floods. Mainly in the mid and dowstream areas of one of China's six major rivers. China has now enacted the Flood Management that will help to prevent other huge floods in China. It states that China will do four things to help prevent floods.
1. Make resevouirs upstream to help trap some of the water of major rivers.
2. Protect flood prone areas from minor or medium size floods.
3. Making joint use of the levees and storage and detention basins for preventing major floods.
4. Flood prepareness and flood fighting before the flood season reaches.
Citations
www.ctgpc.com.cn/en/benefifs/benefifs_a.php
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s334b.htm
http://www.apfm.info/pdf/case_studies/china.pdf
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001440.html
