Water conservancy department: unremittingly guard the bottom line of flood and drought disaster prevention

[Party flag flying high at the grassroots level]

Guangming Daily reporter Chen Chen

At the end of July and the beginning of August, in the face of exceptionally serious floods in the Haihe River Basin, the water conservancy department continued to strengthen forecasting, early warning, rehearsal and pre-planning measures, scientifically and accurately dispatched the flood control engineering system in the Haihe River Basin, gave full play to the role of Party organizations at all levels as a fighting fortress, raced against time against floods, made every effort to ensure the safety of people's lives and property, reduced disaster risk losses, and shouldered the duty of flood prevention in the surging flood waves.

Flood conditions are orders, and time is life. Under multiple difficulties such as water cuts, power cuts, network cuts, and circuit cuts, all the staff of Yanyi Hydrological Station located in Yanyi Town, Mentougou District, Beijing, still charged ahead, rushed to measure the flood process in the turbulent water, transmitted valuable hydrological data through satellite telephone, and completely recorded the largest flood peak process in the Yongding Heshan Gap section since the actual measurement record in 1956. When the flood water rose to the cable house and the water depth was 450 centimeters, all the staff of the Manshuihe Hydrological Station of the National Important Flood Reporting Station on the Dashi River in Fangshan District, Beijing, insisted on completing the task of flow measurement, they snatched key equipment and important materials from the flooded station building and transferred them to the upstream railway bridge to continue to measure the flow, insisting on reporting the flood every hour, and seven employees were trapped in the turbulent flood for 6 hours until they were rescued; The Haihe River Water Conservancy Commission of the Ministry of Water Resources (hereinafter referred to as "the Commission") on the Zhuma River has all washed away the testing facilities of the hydrological station and all communications have been interrupted, but the staff still insists on observing the water level and measuring the flow through the backup draft plan, and after using satellite phones to get in touch with the rear, their first words are not to report safety, but to report the water level.

Scientific decision-making and scheduling requires more timely and reliable hydrological data, and hydrological monitoring and reporting cannot be stopped for a moment! At the emergency moment when important hydrological stations such as Yanyi suffered water damage and flood reporting difficulties, the hydrological emergency monitoring team rushed forward, rushed towards the danger, timely supported the front line, added emergency monitoring sections, strengthened the monitoring of water conditions at key nodes, and did everything possible to ensure that hydrological information was not interrupted.

In the process of coping with the exceptionally serious floods in the Haihe River Basin, the maritime commission, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Henan and other hydrological departments have set up more than 70 emergency monitoring teams, and dispatched more than 1,600 people to provide emergency assistance, brave the wind and rain, step on the waves to measure floods, dynamically monitor the water situation trend of Yongding River, Daqing River, Ziya River and other water systems, and track the location of flood peaks, providing important support for flood control and dispatch decisions.

At the end of July, a short period of heavy rainfall caused the water level of the Zaidang Reservoir in the Yongding River basin to rise rapidly. "At one point, the Zaidang Reservoir exceeded the flood limit by 11.3 meters, and with a maximum inflow of 935 cubic meters per second, the corresponding outbound flow was only 300 cubic meters per second, with a peak shaving rate of 67.9%." Tao Haijun, director of the Yongding River Management Office of the Beijing Municipal Water Bureau, described the dispatching process as "thrilling", "The Zhaitang Reservoir fully realized the function of regulating and storing at the time of design, and won time for the transfer of more than 4,300 people in the downstream Mentougou area."

Reservoir scheduling is a very delicate process. "The most frequent times are when you have to adjust the gate every 10 minutes." In order to implement the dispatching instructions at the first time and report the situation at any time, Sun Xuefeng, a staff member of the lock maintenance team of the Zaidang Reservoir Management Institute, and his colleagues have been guarding the lock room, and when they are most nervous, they dare not close their eyes all night.

In the Haihe River Basin, all reservoir staff insist on reservoir safety. At the same time, the water conservancy department has made great efforts to "embroider" the reservoir with "one flow, one reservoir capacity, and one centimeter water level". "In the process of defending against the basin-wide flood, 84 large and medium-sized reservoirs in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of the Haihe River Basin have been put into flood control, with a total of more than 2.85 billion cubic meters. According to preliminary statistics, through scientific and fine scheduling, 24 cities and towns and 7.51 million mu of arable land were avoided, 4.623 million people were avoided, and the comprehensive disaster reduction benefits of the flood control engineering system in the river basin were fully brought into play, and the pressure of flood control downstream was greatly reduced. Wang Zhangli, deputy director of the Department of Flood and Drought Disaster Prevention of the Ministry of Water Resources, told reporters.

Dongdian is one of the main flood storage and detention areas of the Daqing River system in the Haihe River Basin. During the flood fight, an expert group composed of experts from the Ministry of Water Resources and the Commission stayed at Dongdian to guide flood control on the front line. "We must give full play to our professional advantages, do not eliminate dangerous situations, and never accept troops!" Liang Fenggang, leader of the expert group and chief engineer of the IOC, said.

The expert group formulated a thorough inspection plan, carried out on-site "consultations" for possible dangerous situations, verified the situation, collected data, analyzed and judged, and gave professional opinions, covering every corner and control node of the Dongdian flood storage and detention area within Bazhou City, Wen'an County and Jinghai District of Tianjin City, Hebei Province. We have been fighting on the front line for nearly 20 days, just to let the Dongdian flood smoothly enter the sea and effectively protect the safety of people's lives.

This is a race against time - the Ziya River, Daqing River and Yongding River have a large flood magnitude and a very fast convergence speed, and if part of the flood storage and detention area cannot be activated in time, it will cause the river water level to rise and flood overflow, causing an immeasurable threat to the safety of people's lives and property.

Under the deployment of the Ministry of Water Resources, the IOC conducted flood rehearsals overnight, repeatedly consulted with Tianjin, Hebei and other places, and under the premise of doing a good job in personnel transfer, eight flood storage and detention areas, including Mainland Ze, Ningjinbo, Xiaoqinghe Flood Distribution Area, Langouwa, Dongdian, Xian County Flood Area, Yongding River Flood Area, and Gongqu West Flood Storage and Detention Area, were put into use one after another, with a total maximum flood storage of 2.53 billion cubic meters, reducing flood peaks and discharging flood volumes, and greatly reducing the flood control pressure in downstream areas.

Race against time to fight floods and do everything possible to ensure water supply. In the mountainous area northwest of Fangshan, the water supply rescue team went deep into Daanshan Township for construction work, and the team members carried safety ropes and dragged water supply pipes on a steep slope of nearly 50 degrees; The Inner Mongolia Water Conservancy Department coordinated and arranged for the Ulanqab Water Conservancy Bureau to dispatch a number of emergency water trucks from various banner counties and urban areas overnight to support Zhuozhou, Hebei; Tianjin safely transfers rural water supply facilities that can be evacuated from flood storage and detention areas, and deploys water supply guarantees for personnel to return in advance...

During floods, on dams, in sluice chambers, at post-disaster rescue and water supply sites... On the cusp of the waves, water conservancy people have always rushed to the front line to write the mission and responsibility. At present, the flood waters of all river systems in the Haihe River Basin are in the stage of receding, and the water level of the river channel is gradually decreasing. However, the test of the flood season has not ended, and the water conservancy department will continue to sit on the occasion, unremittingly grasp all work, and firmly hold the bottom line of flood and drought disaster prevention.

Guangming Daily(Version 08, August 25, 2023)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily