Chinese Built-up Land in Floodplains Moving Closer to Freshwaters

Y. Fang, S. Du, J. Wen, M. Zhang, J. Fang, M. Liu

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

© 2021, The Author(s).Human proximity to water and its dynamics are important to understanding the socio-hydrological dilemma between using floodplains and avoiding flood risk. However, previous studies have not distinguished between the water proximity of built-up land in floodplains (BLF) and the water proximity of built-up land outside floodplains (BLOF). This article provides a new and spatiotemporal perspective of the BLF water proximities for understanding the changing flood risk in China. The results show that China’s BLFs had an average water proximity of 5.41 km in 2014. Most of the BLFs (62%, 25.88×103 km2) were located within 3 km of waterbodies. From 1990 to 2014, China’s BLFs increased rapidly by 81% from 23.06×103 km2 to 41.74×103 km2, of which a large portion (57%) was concentrated in water surroundings (≤3 km), shortening the distance between BLFs and waterbodies by 169 m. The BLF growth concentrated in water surroundings even in areas where BLFs have an overall increasing distance from waterbodies. Both the increases in the BLFs and their proximity to waterbodies can increase flood exposure and exacerbate flood risk. The scientific community and policymakers should pay attention not only to the volume of BLF growth, but also its spatial relationship with waterbodies.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)355-366
JournalInternational Journal of Disaster Risk Science
Volume12
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2021

Funding

This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC1503001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41871200, 41730642 and 51761135024), the Shanghai Sailing Program (No. 19YF1413700) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2019M651429).

FundersFunder number
Shanghai Sailing Program19YF1413700
National Natural Science Foundation of China41730642, 51761135024, 41871200
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation2019M651429
National Key Research and Development Program of China2017YFC1503001

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Chinese Built-up Land in Floodplains Moving Closer to Freshwaters'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this