Deep thoughts of land utilization about the rarely severe flooding disaster along the middle and lower reaches of the Changjiang River in 1998

Abstract

In the summer of 1998, a rarely severe flooding disaster occurred in the whole basin of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River, which caused enormous losses. By 22nd of August, 29 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities were involved, 21.2 million ha of land were inundated, 223 million people were affected, 3004 people were killed and 4.97 million buildings were collapsed. The estimated direct loss of the country accounted to 166.6 billion yuan (RMB). The main reason of the disaster is the unusual climate but the unreasonable land utilization also aggravated the disaster. This paper consists of two parts. One part analysed the unreasonable land utilization, including the neglect of forest land protection, which caused the forest land area to decrease by 440 thousand ha in the whole country every year, the enclosing of lakes for cultivation, which decreased the area of lakes located along the banks of the Changjiang River from 17 200 km2 at the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China to 6531 km2 in 1983, the changing of functions of lakes, which reduced the volume of storage exceedingly, for example, only 5 spots of lakes were used for storing water in Wuhan City, and the slow progress of the construction of flood diversion and storage area, which would cause huge losses once flood was diverted. The other part explored the strategy of land utilization on the supplying of land for flood control projects, such as embankment, drainage installation, flood diversion and storage area, and on tapping the potentials through narrowing and amalgamgting the range of rural residential quarters and small towns, reclaiming reserved resources, transforming middle and low productive fields, attaching importance to land arrangement and recultivation, and adjusting contracted fields partially, to ensure the sustainable and stable growth of the region.