Building a Strong Breakwater for Flood and Waterlogging Disasters, People's Financial Evaluation: Strengthening Water Conservancy Engineering Construction Planning | Water Conservancy | Flood and Waterlogging Disasters

Water conservancy engineering is a variety of projects built to control, regulate, and utilize natural water sources in order to achieve the goal of eliminating harm and promoting benefits. Recently, the State Council held an executive meeting and pointed out that "we will strengthen the planning and construction of water conservancy and other infrastructure in the northern region, improve the ability to prevent and respond to water and drought disasters." On August 4th, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Water Resources urgently issued 450 million yuan of water conservancy disaster relief funds for the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region, and on August 10th, another 1.505 billion yuan of central water conservancy disaster relief funds was issued to support the timely restoration of flood control functions of water conservancy projects in disaster stricken areas, effectively ensuring flood control safety.

Due to the recent impact of typhoons and heavy rainfall, some areas have suffered from severe floods. The current flood season has not yet passed, and there is still a possibility of typhoon landfall and local heavy rainfall in the later stage. The tasks of disaster relief and post disaster recovery and reconstruction are heavy. Based on the present situation, we should implement detailed flood prevention and rescue measures to prevent secondary disasters from occurring. In the long run, infrastructure planning and construction should be strengthened to fundamentally prevent the resurgence of flood disasters. From Rivers and Lakes, dams and reservoirs, to culverts, pumping stations, river projects, etc., improving water conservancy projects will help improve the flood discharge capacity of rivers, enhance the flood regulation and storage capacity, ensure the flood diversion and storage function of flood diversion and storage areas, and enhance the flood risk prevention and control capacity.

Strengthening the planning and construction of water conservancy and other infrastructure in the northern region is an inevitable requirement for the construction of the national water network. This year, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the Outline of the National Water Network Construction Plan, which requires accelerating the governance of major rivers and lakes such as the Yellow River, Haihe River, and Songhua River, accelerating the construction of important flood storage and detention areas in the Yellow River and Haihe River basins, and setting clear requirements for the construction of water conservancy projects in the north. According to the planning outline, the number of newly started water conservancy projects in China reached 17600 in the first half of this year, with the largest number of new major water conservancy projects in history during the same period. The construction of water conservancy infrastructure in the north has accelerated, which plays an important role in ensuring national water security.

Strengthening the planning and construction of water conservancy and other infrastructure in the northern region is also the key to addressing weaknesses and strengths. At present, the seven major river basins in China have basically formed a flood control engineering system mainly composed of reservoirs, rivers, embankments, and flood storage and detention areas. However, some river basins have low flood storage and discharge capabilities, incomplete monitoring and early warning systems, and some embankments do not meet the standards. Affected by Typhoon Du Suri, some water conservancy facilities in the Haihe and Songhua River basins have been severely damaged. Strengthening the construction of water conservancy infrastructure is not only for post disaster reconstruction and facility restoration, but also for improving and responding to risks. Frequent water and drought disasters occur in China, and the middle and lower reaches of major rivers are vulnerable to basin floods, strong typhoons, and other impacts. Especially with the intensification of global climate change and the increasing frequency of catastrophic weather, the northern regions that were previously less affected by floods are also facing enormous risks. It is imperative to improve the standards of infrastructure construction.

A thousand mile embankment collapsed in an ant colony, and water conservancy construction was completely destroyed. As an important livelihood project, development project, and safety project, water conservancy engineering construction must establish bottom line thinking and extreme awareness, and accelerate construction. On the one hand, major water conservancy projects have a large scale and high investment demand. While increasing financial investment, local government special bonds and policy oriented development financial instruments should be effectively applied to promote the construction of projects as soon as possible. On the other hand, quality is the life of engineering and it is necessary to create a high-pressure situation for quality supervision. In the first half of this year, the Ministry of Water Resources conducted quality and safety supervision and inspection on water conservancy projects under construction nationwide, as well as the reinforcement of dangerous reservoirs. Over 5000 engineering projects were inspected, and responsible units were strictly urged to implement rectification, fully playing a warning and deterrent role.

Global climate change has led to a significant increase in precipitation in the northern regions of China in recent years. The understanding of floods and the strengthening of water conservancy projects in the northern regions across the country is also deepening. As the saying goes, "preventing disasters before they occur". By making sufficient preparations for flood prevention and resistance, we can alleviate the pressure of seizing major risks and rescuing major disasters. Putting the safety of people's lives and property as the top priority, accelerating the improvement of a modern flood control engineering system composed of rivers, embankments, reservoirs, and flood diversion and storage areas, and ensuring the construction of flood "breakwaters" to provide strong flood control safety guarantees for economic development and people's livelihood improvement.