Recently, the National Water Conservancy Planning and Program Work Symposium was held in Shijiazhuang. It was learned at the meeting that since last year, the Hebei Provincial Department of Water Resources has resolutely implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Ministry of Water Resources and the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, followed the principle of "storage upstream, diversion in the middle, discharge downstream, and effective flood control," firmly established the concept of a "single chessboard" for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei flood prevention and control, thoroughly reviewed and examined the prominent problems exposed by the "23·7" basin-wide catastrophic flood, actively advanced the revision of basin flood control planning, completed the compilation of the Hebei Provincial Water Network Construction Plan, the Special Plan for Post-Disaster Reconstruction of Water Conservancy, and the Implementation Plan for Flood Control and Disaster Reduction Capacity Enhancement Projects, and strived to build a flood control engineering system based on river channels and embankments, with large reservoirs as the backbone and flood storage and detention areas as support.

"Centering on the overall approach of 'basic recovery in one year, comprehensive improvement in three years, and long-term high-quality development,' Hebei Province has planned more than 1,100 post-disaster recovery and reconstruction projects, including seven major categories of key projects such as reservoirs, flood storage and detention areas, river channel improvement, sluice and culvert hubs, storage projects, monitoring and early warning, and flood-damaged projects." At the meeting, Cui Zhiqing, Party Secretary and Director of the Provincial Department of Water Resources, introduced that after the implementation of the projects, the province's reservoir flood control storage capacity will be effectively expanded, embankments of Grade 3 and above will basically meet standards, and monitoring, forecasting, and early warning capabilities will be further enhanced, providing strong support for ensuring basin flood control safety.

In 2023, Hebei encountered a historically rare rainstorm and flood, causing severe flood disaster losses. The Hebei water conservancy departments earnestly practiced the water governance approach of "prioritizing water conservation, balancing spatial distribution, systematic governance, and leveraging both government and market forces," adhered to systematic thinking, continuously improved the flood control engineering system, and accelerated the objectives, tasks, and work measures for building the basin flood control engineering system.

With strong support and assistance from the Ministry of Water Resources and other departments, the Hebei water conservancy departments have continuously improved their work approaches, innovated work models, and made every effort to accelerate preliminary work. As of now, all government bond projects have completed feasibility study approvals. At the same time, the Provincial Department of Water Resources has actively sought funding. It has guided cities and counties throughout the entire process in sorting out projects and classifying them for inclusion in the project database, coordinated with provincial departments of natural resources, development and reform, and finance, implemented policies such as advance land use and acceptance with deficiencies, and advanced the processing of preliminary requirements project by project. At present, the state has allocated two batches of government bond funds to Hebei, involving 424 projects and arranging investment of 39.58 billion yuan, accounting for 52% of the province's government bond funds.

On the day of the meeting, participating representatives visited the construction site of the Gantao River Cangyanshan Town Section and Gulan Gully River Channel Improvement Project in Jingxing County. More than ten excavators and transport vehicles were seen operating in an orderly manner, and river channel dredging was steadily advancing.

Jingxing County is the only purely mountainous county in Shijiazhuang City. In 2023, after the flood passed through Jingxing County, the county focused on implementing projects such as the Gantao River channel improvement, continuously intensified river channel improvement efforts, enhanced river channel flood conveyance capacity, and built a solid flood defense barrier. "At present, 11 water conservancy projects in the county have been included in the scope of government bond fund support," said a relevant person in charge of the Jingxing County Water Affairs Bureau.

"Anchoring the goal and requirement of forming a relatively large amount of physical engineering volume before the end of this year, the province's water conservancy system will accelerate project construction and strive to complete an investment scale of more than 100 billion yuan for the whole year," said Cui Zhiqing.

Grasp preliminary design approval. Water conservancy departments at all levels will closely follow project construction milestones, accelerate approval progress, strengthen precise scheduling, move technical thresholds forward, promote departmental coordination, improve approval efficiency, and ensure that preliminary design approvals for all projects are completed as soon as possible.

Grasp construction progress. Work plans before commencement will be formulated project by project, and the model of "one county, one project legal person" will be promoted in cities and counties to undertake project construction in a centralized manner. The Provincial Department of Water Resources will organize personnel to go down to the front line for guidance and assistance, continuously carry out supervision and inspection, and ensure that construction tasks are completed on time. It is reported that at the end of 2023, Hebei held a promotion meeting for post-disaster reconstruction projects, at which 163 city and county water conservancy departments signed more than 6,000 letters of intent for cooperation with 247 enterprises inside and outside the province, involving an amount of 90 billion yuan. At present, 38 projects have started construction.

Grasp quality and safety. Relevant departments have carried out quality and safety training for frontline technical personnel such as project legal persons, construction units, and supervision units to enhance safety control capabilities. At the same time, they will further closely monitor key construction procedures and milestones, strengthen fund supervision, and carry out project construction management to high standards, so as to fully build projects that win public support, are of high quality, and are clean.