Soil erosion, floods a deadly mix
- Source: Global Times
- [02:16 July 22 2010]
- Comments
"It is hard to manage summer floods in South China due to climate conditions, but improving the capacity of water resource facilities to handle floods and planting large areas of protection forests in areas such as the upper reaches of Yangtze River, may help resolve the problem," Liu added.
Quality problems of middle-and-small-scaled water resource facilities were also blamed for the severe flood.
Six small reservoirs were flooded since June and over 1,000 reservoirs nationwide face different risks.
Also, 17 dykes broke in late June in Jiangxi Province after continuous rainstorms hit the region.
"More than 82,000 out of China's 86,000 reservoirs are middle and small-scaled ones, among which many have not been reinforced over several decades. That weakened their capacities to handle such big floods," Zhou Xuewen, director of planning division in the ministry, said at a news conference Wednesday.
"We are going to reinforce middle-and-small-scaled facilities nationwide soon and those in the most dangerous situations, including many located in poor geological conditions will be given priority," Zhou told the Global Times Wednesday.
