Banqiao Dam - Legacy

Legacy

After the disaster of the Banqiao dam failure, the Chinese government became very focused on surveillance, repair, and consolidation of reservoir dams. China has 87,000 reservoirs across the country; most of which were built in the 1950s-1970s using low construction standards. Most of these reservoirs are in serious disrepair, posing challenges to the prevention and control of flood-triggered geological disasters in areas with a population of 130 million or more. China's medium and small rivers are considered to be the Achilles' heel in the country's river control systems. According to statistics from the Ministry of Water Resources, China has invested CN¥ 64.9 billion (US$9.72 billion) since the 1998 Yangtze River floods in repairing and consolidating the country's 9197 degraded reservoirs, of which 2397 are large or medium sized, and 6800 are key small reservoirs. All of the above projects should be finished before the end of 2010. However, there are 5400 small (1) reservoirs and a great many even smaller (2) reservoirs in need of repair. The capacity of a small (1) reservoirs is defined to be between 1 million m³ and 10 million m³. The capacity of small (2) reservoirs is defined to be between 100,000 m³ and 1 million m³. Projects to repair and consolidate 5400 small (1) reservoirs will be completed before the end of 2012. Projects for the remaining smaller (2) reservoirs will be completed within 3–5 years.