Human impact on floods and flood disasters on the Yangtze River

In the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the floods have become more and more frequent, and the water level rises higher than before. The damages are becoming ever more serious. This is primarily a consequence of human activity in the river basin. Three aspects deserve particular attention. First, destruction of vegetation has led to soil erosion in the upper reaches. In the past 30 years, the forest cover has been reduced to half, while the area exposed to severe erosion doubled in size. In the long run, this can be expected to increase flooding. Second, land reclamation and siltation has reduced lake sizes. This has resulted in decrease of the flood storage capacity. Third, the construction of levees has caused flood levels to rise due to restricted flood discharge capacity. Establishment of the Great Jinjiang levee caused silting up of the riverbed and valley in the mid-reaches of Yangtze. Consequently, the discharge capacity decreased to 60,000-68,000 m(3)/s, which is sufficient only for ordinary floods. This article concludes that the deteriorating flood situation is the result of inappropriate human intervention in the natural environment. It is suggested that the appropriate strategy should change from "keeping the flood away" to "giving the flood way". Related tactics and strategies under consideration are briefly summarized. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.