Soak it up: China’s ambitious plan to solve urban flooding with ‘sponge cities’
By Anna Leach
Can the might of the Chinese government overcome complex needs and investor disinterest to deliver an ambitious programme to save China’s 450 million urban inhabitants from floods?
Flooding causes more economic, social and humanitarian damage than any other natural disaster and has affected 2.3 billion people over the past 20 years, according to research from the Global Resilience Partnership. China has been particularly affected. This year saw the worst floods in the country since 1998. In July 150 people were killed in central and northern China after intense rainfall.