The Economist: Beijing, Under Water and Under Fire

For a capital city unusual, and perhaps unique, in being situated neither on a costline nor along the banks of a big river, Beijing has been under water a lot of late. Violent summer rainstorms flooded the city in June of last year, overwhelming the antiquated drainage system, flooding roads and paralysing the normally bustling city. On July 21st Beijing was struck again by an even more devastating rainstorm. According to official monitors, it was the largest the city has suffered since records began to be kept in 1951. Thirty seven deaths have been blamed on the storm. This has raised questions about whether money spent on such prominent "vanity" projects as skyscrapers and Olympic parks, might have been better spent on basic infrastructure and on improving disaster preparedness. A more common problem is a shortage of water. Beijing is perched precariously on the edge of the Gobi desert, and for centuries planners have been preoccupied with how to bring water into it, not divert it elsewhere. Guo Shoujing, a 13th century scientist and hydrologist, is still revered for designing a network of lakes, weirs and artificial waterways. These not only watered the palaces of Kublai Khan and his descendants, but also allowed barges from the southern parts of the empire to bring "tribute" to their imperial masters and grain to the people of the capital. Drainage was left to open sewers, sluices and canals, none of which were particularly effective when rains came. Over the past 1,000 years, the city has suffered 140 serious floods. Inundations in 1626 and 1890 were especially calamitous. Both of those floods came towards the end of dynasties, when corruption, neglect and mismanagement sapped the government's ability to maintain public works. The current drainage system dates from the 1950s and is based on a Soviet design, which relies on pipes rather than sewers to direct excess water.