Climate catastrophe – A Deadly Heatwave in China

For over 70 days from June through to August of this year, China suffered through one of the most extreme droughts in recorded history. From Shanghai to Lhasa in Tibet, China’s breadbasket has seen dangerously high, prolonged temperatures and a severe lack of rainfall that has led to the rivers running dry. For China, a country that relies on hydropower for 17% of its electric power generation, this drought has caused an additional challenge, with power restrictions put in place in Shanghai, along with many other cities across China.

The water and power shortages are forcing agricultural workers to take drastic action to try to protect their crops, and early evidence suggests that in many cases this is failing. The risk of massive crop failure would be devastating for China, already struggling with rising food prices, along with the rest of the world, due to global climate-related crop reductions, COVID-19, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The fact that Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality, key crop-producing areas of the country, are in some of the worst-affected areas is a massive concern for the government, who have issued an alert to ensure water usage is minimised in agriculture to preserve as much as possible.

The Drought-Affected Areas of China. Source: South China Morning Post https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/news/china/article/3190803/china-drought/index.html

 

The drought alone has caused devastation across China, but further disruptions are also worsening the climate catastrophe that is unfolding. Wildfires have ravaged parts of Sichuan and Chongqing and displaced an unknown number of people. The scale of destruction would suggest that there are thousands across the worst-affected areas, particularly in rural areas outside of major cities. As Chinese media focuses on the heroic stories of residents of suburbs of Chongqing fighting back fires from the edges of their towns, those in more rural areas have had less support. By the end of August, it appears that all fires in Beibei District, just north-west of Chongqing, have been extinguished. The long recovery process must now begin.

Wildfires in Beibei District, near to Chongqing, on 27th August 2022. Source: @Cao_Li_CHN on Twitter

 

Mercifully, rainfall has arrived in Chongqing and Sichuan. The rain was much needed not just to aid in the extinguishing of the wildfires, but also in order to bolster the dry Yangtze River, which serves over 450 million people. Interestingly, this rainfall does not appear to be a result of the natural end of the drought conditions over southern China. Rather, this rain was artificially created through the futuristic-sounding process of “weather modification”. Drones and rockets were used by government agencies to “seed” clouds with silver iodide, a compound with a similar structure to ice, which attracts water droplets to it and increases the chances of rain forming over the area in which the seeding takes place. Cloud seeding is far from a guarantee that rain will come, and requires specific climatic circumstances to be effective at all, but in this case it appears to have been effective and bringing an end to apocalyptically dry conditions that Sichuan and other provinces had been suffering.

This type of weather modification activity is likely something we will see much more of in coming years. The UAE has also engaged in cloud seeding activity in an attempt to break its own drought this year, and various scientific tests have been taking place over the US to explore the effectiveness of cloud seeding in different contexts. However, whilst such an activity may relieve some of the most extreme impacts of these heatwaves rocking the globe in 2022, it will not prevent droughts from happening. It also runs the risk of furthering harm by bringing excessive rainfall to areas just emerging from a drought. Heavy rainfall immediately following dry periods, when the ground is hard, dry, and less able to absorb moisture, regularly leads to flash flooding.

For the affected populations across southern China, the next steps after the extinguishing of the fires will be to try to build back what was lost. We do not have a clear sense yet of how many homes have been destroyed in the wildfires, or how many more may be damaged in post-drought flooding. It was reported on the 29^th of August, however, that over 100,000 people had been evacuated from areas at risk of flooding across southwest China due to the heavy rainfall. This, added to the undisclosed number of homes destroyed in the preceding wildfires, represents a huge number of homes in need of reconstruction and recovery across Sichuan and Chongqing.

In Sichuan, the Sichuan Red Cross has extensive experience in supporting flood-affected households, and have also adopted the QSAND framework as one tool amongst many that they can utilise in post-disaster response and recovery. I have been privileged to support in various ongoing projects in China that have used QSAND as part of their process to make sustainable and resilient choices in post-disaster shelter activities, most notably in support of a student group at Beijing Jiaotong University in their Solar Decathlon China Competition entry. As part of this project, another supporting organisation, the Chan Cheung Mun Chung Charitable Fund, took up the challenge of translating the QSAND manual into Chinese for ease of use by organisations involved in post-disaster recovery in the country. That version of the manual is now freely available for access.

The QSAND manual, available in Chinese from CCMCCF here https://www.ccmccf.org.hk/en/knowledge-2/qsand/

QSAND is a shelter and settlement sustainability tool that can help decision-makers to consider the long-term impact of their interventions, from the immediate response phase of a disaster through to long-term recovery. In the early days of displacement following a disaster like those we are witnessing unfold in China, access to shelter is a key priority for affected people. A good quality shelter can serve as a springboard for long-term recovery for affected communities, and so it is important to make the right decisions throughout the reconstruction process. QSAND can help with some of these decisions, and we hope that it can provide support as communities across China begin the process of returning and recovering after this crisis.

The recovery process will be long, but the heroism that has been shown in the immediate response to these wildfires by ordinary people, such as the volunteer motorcyclists who supported firefighters on the outskirts of Chongqing, demonstrates the capacity of affected communities to respond effectively. The use of cloud seeding as a way to break the drought is a novel solution to a problem that is likely to become much more common in the future. And the anticipatory evacuation of at-risk communities in the flood zones is an important method for limiting potential future harm to life.

Considering that this same extreme heatwave is likely responsible for the mass glacier melt in neighbouring Pakistan, and the resulting floods that have left around 30 million people affected, it is becoming very clear that the way that we anticipate, prepare for, and respond to climate conditions like these is becoming more important than ever before.

The climate crisis is here, and we should make sure we are learning from those on the frontlines, as well as providing support and help where we can.

We’re all in this together. We can only find a way out together too. 

 

It has been a privilege to work with the teams in China on the translation of the QSAND manual. If this, or the original English version, might be of use to you in your programmes, please do reach out and contact me. I would be happy to discuss how QSAND can be used and where the QSAND team can support projects anywhere in the world.