Recently, the Huaihe River Water Resources Commission and the Shandong Provincial Department of Water Resources jointly held the completion acceptance meeting for the Shandong Province Houdong Flood Storage and Detention Area Construction Project in Jining. Through preliminary technical pre-acceptance, on-site inspections, report hearings and other acceptance procedures, the completion acceptance committee unanimously agreed to approve the project. This project is the first flood storage and detention area adjustment and construction project among the 38 national projects for further harnessing the Huaihe River to pass completion acceptance, adding a new "trump card" for further enhancing water security capacity in the Nansi Lake Basin.

In recent years, Shandong has accelerated the construction of a national and provincial water network pilot zone, comprehensively improved the comprehensive benefits of the modern water network, focused on "water network + flood control safety," and continuously consolidated the water security network. The Shandong Province Houdong Flood Storage and Detention Area is located east of the east levee of Nansi Lake, involving four counties (districts and cities) in Zaozhuang and Jining. The original roads, bridges and culverts and other infrastructure in the area had long been in disrepair, with poor function and low standards, and there were no safety platforms, village protection dikes or other in-place refuge facilities, and very few communication and alarm facilities.

As one of the 172 major water conservancy construction projects for water conservation and supply determined by the State Council, and also one of the 38 national projects for further harnessing the Huaihe River, the Shandong Province Houdong Flood Storage and Detention Area Construction Project started construction in September 2019 and was completed in December 2022. It covers a total area of 252.69 square kilometers, with an estimated total investment of 620.4 million yuan. The main construction tasks are to carry out flood control engineering and safety engineering construction in the Houdong Flood Storage and Detention Area, create conditions for the safe and effective operation of the flood storage and detention area, ensure that when the area is used, local residents can quickly and orderly evacuate to safe areas or take refuge in place, and safeguard flood control safety in the Huaihe River Basin and the lives and property of residents in the flood storage and detention area.

"In the past, the surrounding roads were all muddy, and after heavy rain it was impossible to go out to work." Liu Yuechang, a villager from Luqiao No. 6 Village, Luqiao Town, Weishan County, Jining City, praised the project's evacuation road. "Now the roads are smooth and the bridges are wide, making everything convenient."

Since the start of construction, the Shandong Provincial Haihe, Huaihe and Xiaoqinghe River Basin Water Management Service Center, as the provincial-level project legal person, together with the project legal persons of Jining and Zaozhuang cities, has overcome factors such as the project's cross-regional nature, numerous sites, wide coverage, the impact of the epidemic, and design changes, continuously improved construction management levels and service support capabilities, and ensured high-standard construction of the project.

"To effectively improve project quality and benefits, we steadily and orderly carried out three batches of major design changes." He Guangming, deputy director of the Shandong Provincial Haihe, Huaihe and Xiaoqinghe River Basin Water Management Service Center, introduced that taking the safety building project as an example, in the original plan the safety buildings were relatively scattered and the building space was small, which was not conducive to resettlement and management. After changing from scattered resettlement to centralized resettlement, the building space is larger, which is more conducive to the resettlement and management of residents during flood avoidance, more conducive to organization and implementation and post-completion dispatch management, and more convenient for residents' production and life. Moreover, the project scale and standards were not lowered, project safety, construction period and ecological environment were not affected, and the estimated budget was reduced by more than 44 million yuan.

After the project is put into use, it has improved local traffic conditions, created conditions for the safe and effective operation of the flood storage and detention area, ensured that when the area is used, local residents can quickly and orderly evacuate to safe areas or take refuge in place, and plays an important role in ensuring flood control safety in southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu, fully leveraging the overall benefits of the eastward diversion and southward discharge project, improving the flood control system of the Huaihe River Basin, and safeguarding flood control safety in the basin and the lives and property of residents in the flood storage and detention area.