Reservoirs acted as bulwark against floods this season, govt says

Reservoirs across the country have played a major role in facilitating the government's effort in fighting against flood this major flood season, helping store over 80 billion cubic meters of water that would have endangered areas in their downstream, said a senior water resources official.

Ye Jianchun, vice-minister of water resources, also said the water these reservoirs helped stored was more than double the largest carrying capacity of the reservoir formed by the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project.

The top water resources apparatus were confronted with rigorous challenge after the Super Typhoon Lekima landed in eastern China's Zhejiang province on August 10 and poured down 153.2 billion cu m of water in China in the following eight days, he told a news conference on Tuesday.

"It's a tough task (for the ministry) to accommodate such large amount of water properly and make sure it didn't result in disasters," he noted.

Based on rainfall forecast, the ministry made intensified efforts to coordinate joint actions from different reservoirs to discharge water in advance to accommodate the coming flood. "The effort yielded marked results," he said.

In Shandong province, which was hit by drought that almost dried up some of its reservoirs before Lekima's arrival, for example, 88 million cu m of water was discharged from 54 medium and large-sized reservoirs.

These reservoirs helped accommodate almost 1.3 billion cu m of rainfall brought by the cyclone, which would have endangered 26,000 people in their downstream if it was not stopped, the vice-minister said.

The ministry has so far this year coordinated more than 2,100 reservoirs to accommodate flood, he added.

He said the country may be hit by more typhoons that will bring rainstorms though the major flood season, which lasts from July to August, is nearing its end. The ministry will continue to resort to concerted discharging actions from different reservoirs to prevent floods.

On average, the country received about 4.5 centimeters of precipitation so far this flood season, slightly more than last year. But 585 major rivers in 25 provincial regions saw water level above their warning lines, 52 percent more than last year, according to the ministry.

It also said 36 medium and small-sized rivers across the country were hit by the strongest floods on their records.

Currently, over 200 hectares of farmland are troubled by drought and 670,000 people have difficulties in getting drinking water, though drought is generally less severe than normal years, it said.