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Economic Growth and Challenge: China

Droughts, floods and climate variability

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 3 Section B

Overview

Living with a monsoon that fails or overshoots — the events, the populations exposed, and the irrigation, storage and warning that reduce the damage.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Why is the North China Plain so drought-prone?

Numbers

Describe a major recent drought in northern China.

Numbers

What happened during the Yangtze drought of 2022?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why is the North China Plain so drought-prone?

    Model answer

    Rainfall on the North China Plain is concentrated into a short, unreliable summer monsoon. Demand from farming, cities and industry exceeds supply in most years.

  2. 2

    Describe a major recent drought in northern China.

    Model answer

    A severe drought across northern China in 2010 and 2011 hit the winter wheat crop in eight provinces. Emergency irrigation and cloud seeding were used to protect the harvest.

  3. 3

    What happened during the Yangtze drought of 2022?

    Model answer

    A record heatwave and rainfall about 45% below normal shrank the Yangtze in the summer of 2022. Hydropower output in Sichuan collapsed, forcing factory closures and power rationing.

  4. 4

    Describe the 1998 Yangtze floods.

    Model answer

    Prolonged monsoon rain flooded the Yangtze basin in 1998 and killed over 3,000 people. Around 14 million were made homeless and losses ran into tens of billions of dollars.

  5. 5

    What made the 1998 floods worse than the rainfall alone?

    Model answer

    Deforestation in the upper basin increased runoff and sediment yield. Reclamation of Dongting and Poyang lakes for farmland had removed natural floodwater storage.

  6. 6

    Describe the 2020 Yangtze floods.

    Model answer

    An unusually long plum rain season in 2020 flooded the middle Yangtze and displaced millions. The Three Gorges reservoir was used to hold back record inflows.

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