With a pumping capacity of 508 cubic meters per second and a designed inflow to the river of 12,000 cubic meters per second, it undertakes the task of diverting and discharging more than 70% of the Huai River floodwaters... At the source of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the Jiangdu Water Conservancy Hub of Yangzhou City, known as the "Pearl of the Jianghuai," is located here.

It is understood that the Jiangdu Water Conservancy Hub is the largest electric drainage and irrigation project in China and even in Asia. It mainly consists of 4 large pumping stations, 12 large and medium-sized sluices, 3 lock gates, 2 culverts, 2 fishways, as well as power transmission and distribution and diversion channel works. It is a pioneering model of inter-basin, long-distance, and large-flow water diversion in China, and it is also New China's ** large-scale pumping station cluster with fully independent intellectual property rights.

A river of clear water surges northward. The Jiangdu Water Conservancy Hub is located at the confluence of the "three waters" and plays the role of a "stabilizer" and "regulating valve." "The Jiangdu Water Conservancy Hub is the **-level step that supplies Yangtze River water to the Grand Canal. Using the nine-level pumping stations along the Grand Canal, it lifts Yangtze River water step by step and transports it northward," said Xue Jingjun, director of the Fourth Pumping Station Management Office of the Jiangsu Provincial Jiangdu Water Conservancy Engineering Management Office, in an interview with reporters. This is also an important mission of the Jiangdu Water Conservancy Hub.

Jiangsu's water resources are unevenly distributed, abundant in the south and scarce in the north. The Jiangdu Water Conservancy Hub has benefited the coastal areas, completely changing the disaster-prone and low-yield agricultural conditions in northern Jiangsu, turning "dryland conversion to paddy fields" into a "granary," and enabling the Lixiahe region to develop from single-crop waterlogged fields into "ton-grain fields" with two crops of rice and wheat per year. The mighty Yangtze River water sets out from the Jiangdu "source," climbs over thirteen "steps," and surges northward, nourishing dozens of large and medium-sized cities, restoring the natural ecology of the north, and benefiting about 120 million people.

The opening and closing of the 65-gate sluice, from 1 hour to 5 minutes—the light of intelligence has pressed the "accelerator" for water conservancy projects. "Since the integrated sluice gate opening and closing measurement and control platform independently developed by the Wanfu Sluice Management Office went online, the sluice gates that once required manpower to open on foot can now be opened and closed with a single click on the platform, while simultaneously achieving multiple functions such as sluice gate monitoring, alarm display, and fault indication," Yuan Zhibo, deputy section chief of the Engineering Management Section of the Water Conservancy Engineering Management Office, told reporters.

"Projects such as Wanfu Sluice, Taiping Sluice, and Jinwan Sluice, as the controlling river-mouth gates of the Huai River's river-entering channel, undertake the task of diverting and discharging more than 70% of the Huai River floodwaters, with a designed inflow to the river of 12,000 cubic meters per second. The construction of smart water conservancy has greatly improved our efficiency in opening sluices to release floods," Yuan Zhibo said.

It is reported that from 2020 to October 2023, the Jiangdu Water Conservancy Hub operated for a total of 1,097 days. Through the combination of different engineering facilities and the intelligent scheduling system, it diverted and supplied 28.24 billion cubic meters of water and drained and discharged 76.77 billion cubic meters of floodwater, making major contributions to safeguarding the high-quality economic and social development of the region.