Understanding China’s Urban Rainstorm Waterlogging and Its Potential Governance

Abstract

Urban rainstorm waterlogging is one of the most important problems in urban development and a comprehensive embodiment of urban diseases. China is facing a severe risk of rainstorm waterlogging disasters, which is affecting sustainable development. Urban rainstorm waterlogging in China is caused by many factors, including natural factors and human factors, such as climate warming, unreasonable urban construction, inadequate upgrading of urban fortification standards, etc. Based on the analysis of the current strategies to deal with urban waterlogging around the world, including an increase in surface infiltration, and a reduction in runoff (and its various impacts), this paper holds that the connotation and goal of these measures are highly consistent with the construction of a sponge city in China. Based on the analysis of the problems, including construction of an urban rainwater recovery system, construction of urban rainwater storage facilities, and construction of data platforms faced by China’s sponge city, this paper puts forward the guiding principles of promoting the construction of a sponge city. The guiding principles are to cooperate to deal with climate change and ecological civilization construction, to study the foreign experience, and to unite multiple subjects, integrate multiple elements, design multiple processes, form a joint force, and create an all-round response system to deal with urban rainstorm waterlogging. Then, this paper gives policy recommendations on how to deal with the urban rainstorm waterlogging disasters, which include improving the defense standards, encouraging social participation, popularizing the construction of sponge cities, perfecting the monitoring and early warning system, strengthening the scientific planning of cities, strengthening the ability of dealing with catastrophes in metropolitan areas, the overall planning of cross-regional responses, and enhancing the awareness of decision makers. Finally, this paper expounds the reference significance of urban rainstorm waterlogging control in China to the global audience. This paper explores the significance of comprehensively and scientifically understanding urban rainstorm waterlogging disasters, and provides support for long-term planning and high-quality construction of future safe cities.

Comprehensive Understanding the Disaster-Causing Mechanism, Governance Dilemma and Targeted Countermeasures of Urban Pluvial Flooding in China

“…According to the 2006-2018 China Water and Drought Disaster Bulletin statistics [13], China has been flooded in more than 100 cities every year since 2006, including 258 cities flooded in 2010, 184 in 2012, and 234 in 2013. According to the special research on 351 cities by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People's Republic of China [15], 62% of the cities in China had pluvial flooding from 2008 to 2010, 137 had pluvial flooding more than 3 times, and 57 of them had the maximum flooding time more than 12 h. Rainstorm is the most direct driver of urban pluvial flooding [6,16], and climate change is directly responsible for global and regional changes in rainstorm.…”

“…Many scholars have analyzed the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of extreme precipitation or rainstorm in China and the causes of the changes [6,7,33,[38][39][40]. Studies have shown that the rainstorm events in the North China Plain are more random during the past few decades [10,15,16], with the maximum rainfall historically occurring much higher than the common heavy rainfall in the North China Plain [17].…”

“…On 11 April 2019, influenced by the convergence of cold and warm air currents, Shenzhen City experienced short-lived rainstorm and sudden pluvial flooding in several areas of the city, resulting in 11 deaths [15]. In 2020, severe pluvial flooding caused by rainstorm that lasted for many days in southern China, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management of the People's Republic of China website, as of 10 July 2020, pluvial flooding caused 33.85 million people affected in 27 provinces, 141 people died, and the direct economic loss was RMB 69.59 billion [13,16].…”

“…Urban pluvial flooding has become a prominent problem affecting the public safety of cities in China and an important factor limiting the economic and social development of China [16][17][18]. A scientific and systematic understanding of the disaster-causing mechanism of urban pluvial flooding and a comprehensive understanding of the dilemma in urban pluvial flooding governance are the basis and core of improving the urban pluvial flooding governance system, improving urban storm flooding prevention and mitigation capacity, and reducing urban pluvial flooding disasters losses [19][20][21][22].…”

Assessing Permeability Controls and Flood Risks Related to Urban Impervious Surface Expansion: A Case Study of the Southern Part of Kunming City, China

“…Urban flooding poses a great threat to societal and personal safety annually. Therefore, the governance of urban flooding is an urgent problem faced by urban development, and its governance and transformation have become hot topics of current urban research (Kong et al 2021). In previous studies, six different years (1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, and 2000) and six simulated land use scenarios (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% impervious surface areas) were considered to evaluate the impact of urbanization on changes in urban flood risks in coupled hydrological and hydraulic models (Feng et al 2021).…”