Reflections on the Catastrophic 2020 Yangtze River Basin Flooding in Southern China

During the summer of 2020,southern China suffered from catastrophic flooding,the massive basin flood mainly occurred in the Yangtze River's middle and lower reaches.As of July 20,2020,the cumulative precipitation since the rain season started exceeded 500 mm over most of the Yangtze River Basin,reaching>1,200 mm in some areas of the lower reaches,exceeding the same period in 1998,the severest flood year in the past 60 years.Several water gauge stations at Poyang Lake and Chaohu Lake exceeded their historical record values.The water levels in the Wuhan section of the Yangtze River were among the highest ever recorded.As of July 22,2020,45.5 million people had been affected by the floods,with 142 people having died or were missing,and the direct economic losses expected to be around 116 billion RMB(~16.5 billion US dollars).However,the losses from this flood are much lower than those of previous major floods.For example,the catastrophic 1998 flooding led to 1,526 deaths and economic losses of 255 billion RMB(~36.4 billion US dollars).The reasons behind this are worthy of further study and discussion,and may be used for reference in the future and for other countries.