As the main flood season approaches, one torrential rain after another has plunged city after city into waterlogging: flooded roads, ruptured pipelines, paralyzed traffic, damaged buildings, casualties…… Cities that look glamorous on the surface prove almost helplessly fragile under the onslaught of heavy rain.

Waterlogging has sounded the alarm. We must change the urban development mindset that favors the aboveground over the underground, must correct the municipal management model that emphasizes construction over maintenance, and must embark on a path of scientific development in harmony with nature.

“While Kunming's aboveground projects developed rapidly, beneath the bustling commercial streets and high-rise buildings lies a drainage system that cannot keep pace with them.” —— A Kunming drainage expert spoke bluntly.

“The modernity of a city is measured not only by how bright its neon lights are, nor only by how tall its buildings are or how wide its roads are, but more by how solid its infrastructure is — especially whether conscience projects like sewers are unobstructed.” —— Jin Ziqiang, Professor at Yunnan University

“Some scholars say that 'a single heavy rain exposes decades of a city's construction for what it really is.' The remark may be somewhat extreme, yet it is thought-provoking: Why, under extreme weather, can existing drainage facilities not keep up with urban waterlogging? Why can we build high-rises, roads and bridges at astonishing speed with advanced technology, yet cannot change the status quo of 'waterlogging whenever it rains'?” —— Xu Guangjian, Vice Dean of the School of Public Administration and Policy at Renmin University of China

On the evening of July 18, Kunming turned into a “water city” overnight. And such shocking scenes are not unique to Kunming.

May 14: Heavy rain swept across Hunan, and some low-lying areas in the urban districts of Changsha and Xiangtan were waterlogged, with one death attributed to the disaster.

May 28: Sudden heavy rain hit Xi'an. Although rainfall was only 20 millimeters, scenes of “watching the sea” still appeared in many places.

June 30: Severe convective weather including rainstorms and hail struck Ordos. Waterlogging occurred in Dongsheng District; some building walls in the urban area collapsed, and single-story houses in low-lying areas were flooded, causing 8 deaths.

July 9 to 10: After severe flooding caused by heavy rain in Wuhan, a new round of intense rainfall on the 14th caused serious waterlogging in many places in Xianning, Huangshi and other areas.

July 10: Heavy rain caused waterlogging in 8 underpass tunnels and 40 road sections in downtown Chengdu; one person fell into the water and went missing in Xindu District.

July 14: Guangzhou was hit by heavy rain, with waterlogging in the urban area; significant flooding occurred along the section of the main avenue near Baiyun District Hospital.

July 15: Severe waterlogging occurred in the urban area of Yan'an, Shaanxi, as well as in some county towns and market towns, with multiple natural gas pipelines ruptured.

Sewer Construction in Chinese Cities Severely Lags Behind

Objectively speaking, there are certain objective reasons for urban flood disasters in China: the vast majority of cities are located on the shores of rivers, lakes and seas, and many places have concentrated rainy seasons.

But it must also be recognized that flooding is also related to the “emphasis on the aboveground, neglect of the underground” in some places. As cities have more and more high-rises, ground hardening has reduced the permeable “capillaries.” Invisible infrastructure such as sewers lags seriously behind: at present, the drainage standard for provincial-capital-level cities and above is generally only a one-in-one-year to one-in-two-year event, and the drainage standards of other cities are even lower. Some cities have even cut off drainage networks during construction, damaging urban drainage systems. In some old urban districts, drainage systems are aging and out of repair, seriously silted and blocked.

People hope that relevant departments will make every effort to advance the construction of urban levees, rivers and channels, pipe networks, pumping stations and other projects, and promptly investigate and deal with encroachment on rivers and lakes and the cutting off of drainage networks.

In the long run, urban development planning and land-use planning need to be further improved in scientific rigor. Municipal and urban flood-control and drainage construction should be coordinated, sufficient permeable ground should be reserved, and solid underground “conscience” projects should be built.