2017 China floods

Date: 2017

Place: Southern and Central China

Result: More than 200 dead, approximately $5.7 billion in property damage

Overview

In June and July 2017, a period of sustained heavy rains that fell over a large portion of southern and central China lead to numerous devastating floods that ultimately claimed more than 200 lives, injured and displaced countless others, and caused around $5.7 billion in property damage. The province of Human endured the worst floods. Other affected provinces included Guangxi, Guangdong, Hubei, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shandong, Shaanxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu, and Henan. Among the major rivers and other bodies of water that rose to dangerous leveling during the flooding were the Yangtze River, Zhujiang River, Dongting Lake, and Poyang Lake.

Deadly floods have been a common occurrence in China for centuries. In particular, the Yangtze River has flooded more than a thousand times over the last two thousand years. Flooding is a serious problem in various parts China for numerous reasons. The primary cause of China's frequent flooding is that fact that much of the nation experiences heavy rainfall during the annual summer season. These rains have become increasingly common and intense, perhaps due in part to the effects of climate change. Such heavy and sustained rainfall inevitably results in severe flooding. Hundreds of people are killed every year during summer flooding.

Another factor in China's deadly floods is the rivers themselves. Many of China's rivers are especially susceptible to flooding. This is particularly true in the case of the Yellow River. The Yellow River has been the source of more deadly floods than any other Chinese River. Stretching from the mountainous Qinghai province in the west to the Yellow Sea in the east, the Yellow River is often referred to as "China's Sorrow" because of the millions of lives it has claimed. In 1931, the deadliest Yellow River flood in recorded history resulted in nearly four million deaths. The Yellow River is prone to flooding primarily because of its high silt content. This often causes the river's channel to become choked with millions of tons of yellow mud, which in turn causes the river to easily overflow and change course. In some places, the river bed is actually higher than the surrounding land and the water is held in place only by large manmade dikes. While such dikes can help prevent flooding under some circumstances, they may provide insufficient protection during particularly heavy rainfall or may catastrophically fail and thereby cause even worse flooding events. This makes flooding a serious and ever-present threat.

While much flooding occurs in China's rural countryside, it is a persistent problem in urban areas as well. After a deadly flood of the Yangtze River in the late 1990s, the Chinese government sought to address the problem of rural flooding by building massive dams. Officials gave little thought to urban flooding, however, and largely ignored the growing problem of inadequate urban drainage. As the Chinese population has grown, demand for food and housing has increased significantly. This trend has led to continuous urban sprawl and damage to the natural drainage system. As a result, many of China's urban areas lack the necessary drainage infrastructure to be able to handle the water overflow that comes with heavy rainfall. This of course also means that such areas are also at elevated risk of flooding during the rainy season.

In addition to China's typical proneness to flooding, the 2017 floods were a product of a particularly wet rainy season. Already one of the wettest places in the world—receiving an average of about 1,000 millimeters of rainfall ever year—southern Asia endured especially heavy rains in 2017 that caused severe flooding throughout the region. Along with central and southern China, heavy rains and severe floods also occurred in India and Bangladesh. All three countries experienced deadly flooding that claimed numerous lives and left many communities devastated.

Many scientists believe that the increased rainfall that led to these widespread and devastating floods was a direct result of the effects of climate change. If this is indeed the case, it is likely that the occurrence of heavy rainfall and dangerous flooding will only increase as climate change worsens in the years to come. As such, the threat of flooding on the level of the 2017 Chinese floods or worse will likely remain a serious problem for the foreseeable future.

As it pertains specifically to the events of 2017, the deadly floods that occurred in central and southern China were the result of heavy rainfall, complicating natural circumstances related to the affected rivers themselves, a lack of appropriate drainage infrastructure in urban areas, and the effects of climate change.

Impact

In late June and early July 2017, much of central and southern China endured days of heavy rainfall that eventually caused severe flooding throughout the region. This flooding quickly proved to be both damaging and deadly. Over the course of just a few days in early July, the death toll from these floods quickly climbed to more than fifty. Ultimately, more than 200 people were killed before the floodwaters receded. The human cost of the 2017 Chinese floods was only one aspect of their overall impact, however. Many communities located in the various river basins that flooded sustained heavy damages. Total property damage estimates topped $5.7 billion in all. The hardest hit region was the province of Hunan, where more than a million people were affected, several people were killed, and hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed. The provinces of Ningxiang and Guangxi also experienced similarly devastating consequences due to the flooding and, in some areas, mudslides that were triggered by the excessive rainfall.

The 2017 Chinese floods also had a broader economic impact. The Yangtze River, one of the rivers that flooded in 2017, is surrounded by flood plains inhabited by about a quarter of the entire Chinese population. Because the region also has plentiful reserves of fertile soil and direct river access, it is responsible for nearly half of the country's gross domestic product. When the 2017 floods devastated much of the Yangtze flood plain, China experienced major economic disruptions.

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