Taihu Basin Authority, Ministry of Water Resources
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Preface

　　The Taihu Basin, though one of the most economically developed areas in China, is also one of the most flood-threatened areas. Since the founding of People's Republic of China, the basin has gone through many floods and suffered heavy losses. Water conservancy is the basic infrastructure of the national economy; flood security is an important premise of protecting the steady development of economy and society in the basin. The party and government attach great importance to the issue of flood control in the Taihu Basin. Since 1955, relevant units have carried out the planning of comprehensive management in the Taihu Basin. After long-term planning studies and years of negotiation, Feasibility Study Report on Integrated Management in the Taihu Basin was proposed in 1985. Flood control regarded the flood in 1954 as the design standard, when the average rainfall in the top 90 days was equivalent to about 50 years in the whole basin. The State Planning Commission approved Master Plan for Comprehensive Management in the Taihu Basin in 1987 (hereinafter referred to as Master Plan), which was executed after the serious flood in the Taihu Basin in 1991.
\r\n Since the completion of Master Plan, with the rapid development of local economy and society,　 great changes have taken place in watershed land surface, rainfall situation, water situation and work situation. There emerged new situations and new problems in flood control, which called for promoted flood control capacity and improved flood control system in the basin.

\r\n 　　At present, the key projects of managing the Taihu Basin specified in Master Plan have been nearly completed, which initially form a system of flood control and disaster reduction in the basin. However, the whole flood control capacity in the basin is still unsatisfactory and leaves much room to reach the requirement of establishing an integrated system of flood control and disaster reduction in the basin. It is mainly reflected in the following aspects: the standard of flood control in some cities is low; the standard of some completed projects is insufficient, such as regional flood control and lake levee; the modernization level of comprehensive management and dispatch in the project is not high, and the security management of flood control is weak; the situations of land subsidence and river silting are serious; towns and polder areas expand, so the area of rivers and lakes reduces; the capacity of dispatch in the polder areas improves; the ecological environment of water deteriorates; the swamping of lakes intensifies etc.

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