Characteristics and prevention of floods in small and medium-sized rivers in extreme weather conditions
WU Zebin
CHAI Fuxin
XU Weihong
Abstract：Small and medium-sized rivers bear multiple strategic missions such as national water security,rural revitalization,regional coordination,and sustainable development.There are 11,169 small and medium-sized rivers in China whose drainage area ranges from 200 to 3,000 square kilometers,with their total drainage area accounting for 61.4%of the country's total land area.There are 1,447 cities at the county level and above,a population of 494 million,410 million mu of cultivated land,and 300 million mu of prime farmland distributed along their banks.In recent years,against the backdrop of frequent extreme rainstorm events,the suddenness,abnormality,uncertainty,and disaster-causing nature of floods in small and medium-sized rivers have become more prominent.The death toll caused by such floods accounts for approximately 20%of the total fatalities caused by flood disasters nationwide,thereby making these floods a key and difficult point in current flood and drought disaster prevention.This paper systematically analyzes the characteristics of small and medium-sized rivers in 2025,including frequent extreme rainstorms,widespread spatial distribution of floods,the frequent occurrence of floods exceeding the design standard,as well as strong suddenness and disaster-causing nature.Meanwhile,it conducts an in-depth analysis of the problems and limitations in the current flood prevention of small and medium-sized rivers in terms of the engineering system,monitoring system,forecasting and early warning,engineering operation and management,and river channel management.In accordance with the concept of systematic governance of small and medium-sized rivers,targeted measures and suggestions are put forward from the perspectives of improving the engineering system for flood control of small and medium-sized rivers,rainfall and water regime monitoring and forecasting system,flood disaster prevention work system,as well as strengthening risk management and control and mechanism research.This study can provide a reference for flood prevention of small and medium-sized rivers in the new era.
Keywords：extreme weatherstorm floodsmall and medium-sized riversfloods exceeding the design standardflood control projectrainfall and water regime monitoring
Publication Date：2026-01-12
Online Publishing Date：2026-01-27(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 23-28 )