Flood risk management in the Yangtze River basin —Comparison of 1998 and 2020 events

Abstract

China is a country that is significantly affected by and sensitive to global climate change. Floods are one of the major natural disasters in China, and they occur with high frequency and wide impact in the country, causing serious losses. Since the 1990s, they have become more frequent. China has made remarkable achievements in flood risk management, but the problems and challenges of this in the context of climate change and urbanization are still serious and require in-depth analysis and targeted adaptations. During the summer of 2020, southern China suffered from catastrophic flooding; however, the losses from this flooding were much lower than those of previous major floods. Herein, the flood disasters of the Yangtze River Basin in China in 1998 and 2020 are compared and analyzed from atmospheric, hydrological, socioeconomic, and disaster-loss perspectives and the reasons behind the observed differences are examined and discussed. The findings indicate that risk-management capabilities, such as engineering defense capabilities, environmental recovery capabilities, forecasting and early-warning capabilities, and emergency response capabilities, have achieved remarkable results. The results show that disaster loss has been largely reduced because of China's achievements in disaster risk reduction measures. The problems and challenges faced by China's flood risk management are analyzed, and detailed watershed comprehensive flood risk management recommendations are put forward to reduce the losses caused by flooding.