China is facing its worst rainy season in more than 20 years.

Losing his job in a uniform factory in Zhejiang province because of Covid-19, Zeng returned to his hometown, a few hours away from work.

`The water suddenly rose up to my chest,` Zeng recalled.

Zeng Hailin stood in front of his flood-damaged house on August 9.

Zeng eventually placed his 81-year-old bedridden mother in a large plastic basin, pushed her to a lifeboat and took her to a relative’s house, while he was staying at a local public school, while waiting for a home.

China’s Ministry of Emergency Management estimates that nearly 55 million people in 27 localities were affected by this year’s floods.

China’s Ministry of Water Resources said that during the worst floods in mid-July, the water level of 433 rivers rose above alarming levels.

`The road in front of my house turned into a river. We were stuck in the house for many days, living on little bread, water and instant noodles,` said Tang Anfeng, a resident of Hekou village.

Like most people in the village, Tang’s house now lies amid muddy fields, with vegetable fields flooded with floodwaters.

Tang, a woman in her 60s, said this area often experiences floods every year, but in previous years, the water only rose to her ankles at most.

`When it rains heavily, they release water from the dam. That water floods the village and we are the ones who bear the brunt,` she said.

In 1958, the government began construction of the first of nine dams and canals near Hekou to regulate seasonal floods by allowing water to flow into the reservoir.

Like countries with many large rivers, China will face a greater risk of flooding and irrigation engineers will have to calculate more carefully where to release floods to avoid the risk of dam failure.

`Climate change predictions show that in the coming years, storms will become more and more intense,` said Brian Eyler, who studies Chinese river management at the Stimson Center, a nonprofit research organization with

Chaohu, one of China’s largest freshwater lakes, had to be reinforced with sandbags around the shore to prevent flooding in July. Photo: NPR

More severe seasonal rains are also forcing China’s river-rich cities to rethink water management policies.

In 2014, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued guidelines for maximizing natural drainage systems in urban areas, including building rooftop gardens, using permeable construction materials, in

`The idea of ‘sponge city’ is to retain water, clean water, refill aquifers. It’s about using nature to regulate water and treat rainwater as a resource instead of dumping it.`

The initiative is still in its early stages.

`People who do not work in the field of urban planning or irrigation may misunderstand the sponge city project. They may think that the sponge city is the key to solving all problems,` Faith

However, Yu remains optimistic about this project.

`It will take time, but ‘sponge city’ is a solution that any level of city government in China should try to replace gray infrastructure,` Yu said.

Ma Youxi let the buffalo swim.

More rain means the 450 million Chinese people living along the Yangtze River and its tributaries face a precarious situation.

`If the dam hadn’t released floodwaters to where we live, more people would have died,` said Li Hanian, a resident of Hekou village.

`We only knew how to release the flood dam when water flooded into the house, without anyone warning us,` Ma Youxi, a farmer in the village, said about the sudden flood in July. He did not have time to save the sheep, luckily.