**Author details**

Reshad Md. Ekram Ali1 \*, Lloyd Warren Tunbridge2 , Rajinder Kumar Bhasin2 , Salma Akter1 , Mohammad Zohir Uddin1 and Md. Mahmood Hossain Khan1

**Chapter 9**

[1, 2].

**Provisional chapter**

**Flash Flood Early Warning Research in China**

**Flash Flood Early Warning Research in China**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.69784

Along with global climate change, extreme rainfall causes severe flash flood disasters, especially in mountainous areas. As about 67% of the terrestrial part of the whole country is mountain area with frequent heavy rainfall, China suffers from flash flood disasters throughout its history. As flash floods are distributed extensively and its influence sphere highly concentrated, it is unreasonable and uneconomical to prevent flash flood disasters mainly via engineering measures. Then, China starts exploring about flash flood early warning, which is optimal for developing country with dense populations, since the 1990s. Based on the literature research, a systematic framework for Chinese flash flood early warning research has been developed. In this frame, flash flood early warning is classified into long-term warning and real-time warning. This chapter presents the Chinese achievements in analysis methods for long-term warning, computational methods for real-time warning indicators, improving data sources used for real-time warnings and the information construction of real-time warning systems. In addition, the sugges-

> © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

In China, flash floods are defined as floods which break out in mountain environments where

Flash floods usually rise up and down sharply, with high velocity and cause great losses [3]. As China is located in East Asian monsoon region, severe rainfall occurs frequently here. That often causes flash flood disasters, threatening villagers' life and restricting economic development of mountain areas [4]. Over the past years, the increase of extreme rainfall in China is generally attributed to the global climate change [5]. The increase of heavy rain leads to the

villagers intensively inhabit, especially occurred in small watershed under 100 km<sup>2</sup>

Haichen Li, Tao Qin and Xiaohui Lei

Haichen Li, Tao Qin and Xiaohui Lei

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.69784

tions for future study are presented.

**Keywords:** flash flood, risk, early warning, China, review

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

