Digitalizing the fight against floods

The upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, which is in spate for several days now, are still seeing excessive rainfall, and it is feared there will be heavy flooding in other areas, such as the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, and the Haihe, Songhua and Huaihe river valleys.

That explains why at a recent meeting, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee pointed out that all relevant parties should strengthen overall planning and coordination, give play to their respective professional advantages and form a coordinated pattern for flood control and disaster relief.

It also demanded timely and accurate forecast of rainfall and early warnings to villages, households and individuals, apart from unified rescue and relief measures to minimize losses.

Given that people's life and property and the whole country's economic and national security are involved, flood control and disaster relief are of utmost importance. It often boils down to how well the country can coordinate social resources and expertise and make use of advanced technologies such as the internet, big data and cloud computing to consolidate the digitalized flood control and emergency management system.

Be it the fight against the novel coronavirus outbreak or the raging floods, digitization has been playing a leading role.

Since the start of the flood season this year, various regions have explored the use of digitalized means for flood control and emergency management.

From relying on grassroots workers informing residents door-to-door about flood conditions, grassroots authorities now use apps or internet platforms, greatly increasing the efficiency of resource scheduling and information transmission in flood control and relief work.

Early warning and preparedness are central to effective flood control and disaster relief, thus making the use of digital technology indispensable.

For example, in 2018, Jinhua in Zhejiang province signed a contract with Aliyun to build an intelligent flood control and decision-making platform.

It played a key role in ensuring zero casualties during seven rounds of heavy rainfall last year and this season's heavy downpours. Various departments in Jiangxi province have opened a digital governance platform on which citizens can run Alipay search to get information such as weather forecast, free rescue hotlines, and other information.

China should strengthen not only the flood control and disaster relief work, but also the flood control and emergency management system and capacity building by using digital technology.

It should introduce supportive policies to comprehensively promote digitalized flood control and emergency management, so that it becomes an important standard for modernizing national governance system and governance capacity.