A Suzhou winter and spring water conservancy construction meeting was held on November 25. At the meeting, the Suzhou government announced it will invest 8 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) into water conservancy construction. Up to 2.02 billion yuan will be spent on the management of rural water conservancy construction, more than this year’s total of 1.95 million yuan.

Suzhou has over 21,000 rivers and 384 lakes, which are precious resources and important to flood prevention, water logging control, water storage and environment improvement. The lakes and rivers in Suzhou are becoming more beautiful thanks to dredging and cleaning work.

Wujiang suffered great damage this year thanks to Typhoon Fitow. Many problems in infrastructure were revealed, highlighting the inability of factory ports, communities and towns to prevent flooding effectively. As a result, the Suzhou government plans to build 86 kilometers of standard dykes in rural polder areas, build or remold 219 floodgates and 112 drainage stations, and construct 243 kilometers of retaining walls and revetment in 2014. It also plans to standardize the management of 1,654 kilometers of dykes to prevent and drain floods. Meanwhile, it will accelerate the improvement of rural watercourses by removing 364 dams and constructing 158 kilometers of ecological watercourse.