Posted on 08/09/2020 7:49:33 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
The flooding, which started to recede in late July, inflicted the worst natural disaster in a decade on a country still recovering from the pandemic. At least 158 people have died or gone missing and 4 million have evacuated their homes. But so far, it has not dealt a knockout blow to the economy. In fact, Li Yao, a fellow at the East Asia Institute at the National University of Singapore, estimates in preliminary research that the 2020 flood will shave 0.17% from China's 2020 GDP, far less damage than in previous crises.
It should not be hard for China to digest the overall economic loss caused by the flood," Li said.
The flood's minor dent to China's economy is no accident. In recent years, Beijing has nurtured new wetlands and built new dams to counter such threats. The trajectory of the floodwaters mirrors government priorities, with newly constructed infrastructure protecting cities and industrial centers at the expense of farmland and rural villages.
*snip*
The current crisis is the result of an unfortunate perfect storm of climate change and human action, Turner said.
*snip*
There's worry that the small dams that collapsed this season foreshadow what would be the Big One, a failure of Three Gorges.
The dam, a source of national pride, has so far weathered this year's crisis, but the cracks it showed mean Beijing may need to reconsider its strategy.
Not even the Three Gorges Dam has been built strongly enough that we can be certain it will withstand the flooding China has seen in recent weeks, said Shapiro. If the dam were to break it would be a disaster of cataclysmic proportions, she said, one that China's economy could not escape.
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
Ha....just check out some of the hour long videos made by non Gobmint reporters....end of Chinese monsoon season is October.
[There’s worry that the small dams that collapsed this season foreshadow what would be the Big One, a failure of Three Gorges.
The dam, a source of national pride, has so far weathered this year’s crisis, but the cracks it showed mean Beijing may need to reconsider its strategy.
Not even the Three Gorges Dam has been built strongly enough that we can be certain it will withstand the flooding China has seen in recent weeks, said Shapiro. If the dam were to break it would be a disaster of cataclysmic proportions, she said, one that China’s economy could not escape.]
Well see how this plays out, but I suspect that the dam is more solid than the liberal medias portrayal would have anyone think. The Yangtze River is well-known for repeated inundations killing large numbers of people long before this dam was built. An example from almost a century ago, as well as a blurb on its tendency to overfill its banks at unpredictable intervals:
Fatality estimates vary wildly. A field survey by University of Nanking led by John Lossing Buck immediately after the flood found 150,000 people had drowned, and that this number represented less than a quarter of all fatalities during the first 100 days of the flood.[2] The official report found 140,000 drowned[3] and claims that 2 million people died during the flood, having drowned or died from lack of food.[4] A cholera epidemic in the subsequent year, from May 1932, was officially reported to have 31,974 deaths and 100,666 cases.[5] A popular high-end estimate of 3.7 to 4.0 million fatalities enjoys great currency online, helping the 1931 flood to secure its position on sensationalist lists of the worlds deadliest disasters.[1]]
The Yangtze River, the longest river in Asia, also is one of the worlds major waterways. It originates at an elevation above 16,400 feet (5,000 metres) in the Plateau of Tibet and proceeds generally eastward along a winding course until it empties into its major delta system on the East China Sea. The primary flood region is the lower course, downstream of the Three Gorges Dam, an area in which the river flows through low-lying terrain dotted by lakes, marshes, and meandering streams. Increases in the regions population led to efforts to control the river. The Great Jinjiang Levee, completed in 1548, was one of many barriers constructed, and by the late 19th century the Yangtze could drain through only four openings on the south side of the river. Consequently, sediment was deposited only on the river bottom or in Dongting Lake, which caused the flood level to rise and created a lowland on the north bank. In addition, many of the lakes that had once acted as flood control either were cut off from the river by levees or were converted into cropland. Deforestation further reduced the capacity of the area to handle intense rains, which created more runoff.
As a result, when the lower Yangtze basin has experienced sustained heavy rains, the consequences have been catastrophic. The flood of 1931 covered more than 30,000 square miles (77,700 square km)including the cities of Nanjing and Wuhankilled more than 300,000 people, and left 40,000,000 more homeless. Subsequently, more-effective levees were built, but the floods of 1954 and 1998 were still highly destructive and killed some 30,000 and 3,650 people, respectively. One of the major objectives of the Three Gorges Dam project was to alleviate flooding on the lower Yangtze. The dam proved effective during the extraordinarily rainy summer of 2010 by holding back much of the resultant floodwaters and thus minimizing the impact of flooding downstream. However, the dam still had to open its floodgates to reduce the high water volume in the reservoir, and flooding and landslides in the Yangtze basin killed several hundred people and caused extensive property damage.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam
Canadas Daniel Johnson Dam contains 4x the water volume of the the Three Gorges Dam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel-Johnson_dam
Bottom line is that in the worst case, and the dam is completely destroyed, such that every drop of water behind it flushes to the surrounding area, it would inundate, to a depth of ~12 ft (~4m), 39.3/(.004)= 9825 sq km. Thats a 55 km (~34 mile) radius from the dam. Not exactly the kind of flood that got Noahs home brew yacht project going. No fun for the people within that radius who have to seek shelter either on the roof of single story homes or above the second story of one of the many high rises that China has taken to building, but not exactly the tsunami that took out Japans nuclear power plant.
Capacity of dam = 39.3 cu km
Height of flood water = 4 m
Circular area covered by 4 m of flood water
= 39.3 cu km / (4 m * 1 km / 1000 m)
= 39.3 cu km / 0.004 km
= 9825 sq km.
Radius of area covered by 4 m (~12 ft) of flood water
= square root (9825 sq km / (pi = 3.14) )
= square root (3128 sq km)
= 56 km
~ 34 miles
Dent = massive destruction to farms.
Let’s see how this plays out.
Seems like there is a content title impedance mismatch for this article. There were some facts but all the conclusions were CCP talking points. Everything is Awesome!
To the author, stop using Chinese numbers, all it does is make you a puppet of the Chinese.
Slaves are a dime a dozen, a few thousand wash away replaced by a few thousand waiting in the wings
Whistling past the graveyard...
Massive crop losses means China will need to buy food from other countries. And Chinese farmers are screwed.
hmmm bfl
My thought as well. Perhaps that strategy has factored in the increased necessity of importing more food when they are forced to flood farmland.
Fortune is just carrying CCP’s water with this ridiculous article. The effects of the flooding and the other natural, and unnatural disasters that have hit china in the last year will have a large negative impact on china’s economy. Did Krugman write this trip? LOL
Like their Covid Wuhan virus numbers, I don’t believe the story being spun.
Thanks
Locusts in Africa and the ME, mystery seeds to infect croplands in the US, flooding in SE Asia.
China isn't worried, they can invade Australia for food...
-——The flooding, which started to recede in late July,-——
Those words indicate the gross ignorance of the writer. The flooding continues at present and the fourth Yangtze flood took place just last week. The combined rivers are over 4,000 miles long. The Yellow river was flooding just 2 or 3 days ago. To have written this article the author must have relied on CCP briefings at least a month old.
While China is a very large country, the flooding took place on the Yangtze river and numerous tributaries. Tens of millions were directly affected and as of this date, the fantastic damage to infrastructure, levees, bridges and roads is unknown. The damage to all sorts of buildings is completely unknown because the water is still there on lower floors. That excludes the fact that uncounted buildings on the river are just gone, literally swept away by the torrent.
While the rains have subsided, vast very extensive area are still covered with the flood waters. Wen levees they translate as dams, were breached, the flood waters were shunted into vast areas of flat riverbottom lands. Those lands contained growing crops.
The hydrologists have the flooding under control by breeching levees and controlint dam outflow. The prize of Shanghai has been spared apparently
If you doubt my words, go to Youtube and there are extensive daily reports going back more than a month describing the flooding is visual detail.
If you think of the damage of Katrina to stuff and to people, that was aat best a few millions. In China, the citizens affected are in the tens of millions The numbers of flooded autos might be in the millions though.
Since China was already experiencing food supply problems, the destruction of crops on the current scale is telling. Not only plants were effected. There have been lots of hog deaths as well. There have been videos of hogs swimming for their lives
coupled with the virus return and whole cities shut down, the CCP has an awful lot on it’s plate
Good thing the still have the Mandate of Heaven, eh?
A very stupid article based on absolute ignorance of the real circumstances in China.
And they’ve got locust swarms moving in from the southwest.
Lies, damned lies and statistics...
How typical for some people to be parrots for the fake news and peddle it as facts
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