Assessing Chinese flood protection and its social divergence

• Main Authors: D. Wang, P. Scussolini, S. Du
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2021-02-01
• Series: Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
• Online Access: https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/21/743/2021/nhess-21-743-2021.pdf

<p>China is one of the most flood-prone countries, and development within floodplains is intensive. However, flood protection levels (FPLs) across the country are mostly unknown, hampering the present assertive efforts on flood risk management. Based on the flood-protection prescriptions contained in the national flood policies, this paper develops a dataset of likely FPLs for China and investigates the protection granted to different demographic groups. The new dataset corresponds to local flood protection designs in 91 (53.2 <span class="inline-formula">%</span>) of the 171 validation counties, and in 154 counties (90.1 <span class="inline-formula">%</span>) it is very close to the designed FPLs. This suggests that the policy-based FPLs could be a valuable proxy for designed FPLs in China. The FPLs are significantly higher than previously estimated in the FLOPROS (FLOod PROtection Standards) global dataset, suggesting that Chinese flood risk was probably overestimated. Relatively high FPLs (return period of <span class="inline-formula">≥50</span> years) are seen in 282 or only 12.6 <span class="inline-formula">%</span> of the evaluated 2237 counties, which host a majority (55.1 <span class="inline-formula">%</span>) of the total exposed population. However, counties with low FPLs (return period of <span class="inline-formula">&lt;50</span> years) host a disproportionate share (52.3 <span class="inline-formula">%</span>) of the exposed vulnerable population (children and elders), higher than their share (44.9 <span class="inline-formula">%</span>) of the exposed population. These results imply that to reduce social vulnerability and decrease potential casualties, investment in flood risk management should also consider the demographic characteristics of the exposed population.</p>