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HEFEI, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Li Fangbo had
a new companion when fighting floods this year, a drone. As he
maneuvered a boat through the water on rescue operations, the drone was
flying overhead in a supporting role. "The
drone is able to get into dangerous zones quickly and detect whether
there is anyone trapped and whether the rescue route is safe or not,"
said Li, a drone operator from the Wuhu detachment of the armed police
corps in east China's Anhui Province. Besides
drones, a series of technologies have been applied in fighting floods
this year in Anhui, which has saved both time and energy. Ye
Mingdong, who has been working at the front line of flood control and
drought relief for years in Dangtu County, Ma'anshan City, has seen the
difference new technologies have made when fighting floods this summer. "In
the past, the two telephones would keep ringing as the flood control
staff from the townships and villages called to ask about the real-time
precipitation and water levels. But this year, the automatic monitoring
and reporting system has helped gather key data at the rivers and lake
gates," said Ye, deputy director of the county's flood control and
drought relief office. The system,
first applied in the flood season in 2018, gathers and transmits
statistics every five minutes, which makes real-time statistics
available on the Internet. There is
also a wall of screens with signals from 70 high-resolution cameras at
the office, which shows the real-time views of levees along the Yangtze
River, high-risk sections and important gates in the county. "We
also have a helmet with a camera attached to it, which can transmit
real-time images from rescue sites to the headquarters to help direct
the rescue work," Ye said. This
monitoring network is part of China's efforts to apply big data and
artificial intelligence in flood control. According to Liu Zhiyu, an
official with the Ministry of Water Resources, it takes only 10 to 15
minutes to gather precipitation and water level data from all the
120,000 flood-forecasting stations across the country. The
statistics are key for flood control. "Abundant information on the
precipitation and water levels on the upper and lower reaches and the
surrounding areas is necessary for fighting floods," Ye said. Enditem
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