Chronic floods expose urban planning flaws
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E-mail Xinhua, July 2, 2012
As a new round of torrential rains continues to batter parts of China, many cities have been suffering from severe flooding, a chronic problem that has exposed flaws in some cities' urban planning management.
Last Tuesday, several hundred people in the city of Shaoguan in south China's Guangdong province became stranded after some parts of the city were submerged in up to two meters of water. Firefighters in the city of Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang province experienced their "busiest day in history" on June 18, tackling 110 emergencies related to flooding in the city.
Experts believe the floods are largely the result of advancing urbanization, with enlarged concrete roads and the elimination of greenbelts diminishing some cities' ability to filter rain.
Sheng Minzhi, an engineer at the Hangzhou Planning Bureau, said,the construction of tall buildings and underground parking lots have slowed the rate at which rainwater is absorbed into the ground.
Xu Chenghua, an engineer at the Hangzhou Urban Planning Academy, said storm drainage systems in Chinese cities are supposed to be designed in accordance with the Urban Drainage Engineering Planning Regulations approved by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in 2000.
Wang Zhansheng, an environmental and engineering professor at Tsinghua University, said the flooding would not be so severe if the drainage systems were designed to handle more severe rainfalls, adding that the flooding could be avoided if the regulations took population growth, water usage and sewage treatment into consideration.
Experts have also blamed government officials' hubris in city planning, stating that an overemphasis on grandiose projects has led to negligence regarding the construction of "invisible systems," such as drainage systems.
Yang Kai, a professor of municipal planning at Wuhan University, said local governments pay too much attention to above-ground projects, while underground drainage systems are easily ignored.
Some local authorities have realized the importance of improving their cities' ability to withstand flooding and are actively looking for solutions.
The city of Wuhan in central China's Hebei province launched a campaign at the end of February to clean up its drainage channels and strengthen drainage facilities, while the city of Shenzhen in Guangdong is building new storm water recycling facilities in residential areas.
Although local experts in Hangzhou have mastered the art of recycling storm water, it remains impractical to implement the technology on a daily basis, Sheng said.
A central government group responsible for drafting regulations related to urban drainage engineering gathered on May 18 to discuss urban flooding. A source with the group said new regulations concerning drainage system designs are expected to be launched in 2013.
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