Lessons learned from the 2016 Yangtze River flood in Anhui province, China

ABSTRACT

During the flood season of 2016, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River suffered the worst flooding since 1999, involving Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi and Jiangsu provinces and the Taihu Basin. Based on the field survey at eight counties on both sides along the Yangtze River in Anhui Province, this paper analyses the features of rainstorm, flood and the resulting disaster in 2016 over there, and identifies problems and difficulties existing in flood prevention and disaster reduction under the new situation of social and economic development. Furthermore, this paper discusses the coping strategies and measures on advancing the comprehensive flood management mode of human-water harmony, managing middle and small rivers and strengthening the key basic research on flood control and disaster reduction under the new situation.

KEYWORDS:

• Flood prevention and control
• emergency response
• risk management
• comprehensive flood management

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the thoughtful arrangement and support by Water Resources Department, Hydrology Bureau and the Office of Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters of Anhui Province and Anhui and Huaihe River Institute of Hydraulic Research, as well as the local governments of eight counties involved in the field survey of the 2016 flood. The authors are particularly grateful to Professor Haisheng Liu and Senior Engineer Jinhuang Yu for their contributions to the field survey.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research is sponsored by the project of National Key R & D Program for the 12th Five-year Plan (2012BAC21B02) and projects of National Key R & D Program for the 13th Five-year Plan (2016YFC0803109, 2016YFC0803107), which are compiled and managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology in China.