Research on evolution,practice,and supporting system of paradigm of flood governance and management in China

QIAN Feng; LIU Changjun

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1000-1123.2026.05.005

Abstract：Due to its unique physical geography and climatic conditions,China is one of the countries most severely affected by frequent and intense flood and drought disasters in the world.Against the backdrop of global climate change,flood disasters in China have exhibited new characteristics,becoming more extreme,abrupt,and abnormal.Traditional understandings of flood attributes suffer from limitations,often overemphasizing their hazardous nature while underestimating their role as resources and,even more so,their functional aspects.This perspective is increasingly inadequate for addressing the new circumstances.Concurrently,China faces inherent water resource shortages and a highly uneven spatiotemporal distribution,leading to sharp conflicts between flood control and beneficial utilization,frequent alternations between drought and flood,and escalating pressures from ecological degradation.Conventional governance and management models struggle to balance the multiple objectives of flood disaster prevention,flood resource utilization,and water ecological restoration.This paper adopted a philosophical perspective on human-water relationships to review the history of flood governance and management in China.It analyzed the three-dimensional attributes of floods,namely hazards,resources,and functions and elaborated on the concept and connotation of a new paradigm for flood governance and management,termed the"three floods"approach(namely flood control,flood utilization,and flood shaping).The paper summarized China's practical explorations regarding this new paradigm,proposed a supporting system for it,and discussed its application prospects.The research findings aim to provide a reference for deepening the understanding of flood attributes and accelerating the development of a governance and management system based on the"three floods"concept.