October 13 is the International Day for Disaster Reduction. This year's theme is "Building Safe and Resilient Homes," and resilient city development is an important part of building safe and resilient homes. Sun Shuhua, chief engineer of the Hainan Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at a related press conference that day that Hainan is strengthening the safety and resilience of housing and municipal infrastructure and continuously improving its disaster prevention and reduction capabilities.

Data released at the meeting show that from 2022 to 2025, Hainan carried out a cumulative total of about 1,517 kilometers of aging urban gas pipeline renewal and renovation. In 2026, the province completed about 89 kilometers of aging urban gas pipeline renewal and renovation, installed a cumulative total of 269 sets of intelligent gas monitoring equipment covering 2,728 kilometers of pipeline network, 14,213 sets of intelligent utility tunnel equipment covering 69 kilometers, and 98 sets of intelligent bridge and tunnel equipment monitoring 23 key bridges. The intelligent sensing, control, and safety resilience of municipal facilities have been significantly improved.

In recent years, Hainan has advanced urban physical examinations and urban renewal in an integrated manner, carried out special physical examinations tailored to local conditions on issues such as urban drainage and waterlogging prevention, fire safety hazards in historical and cultural blocks, and urban barrier-free facilities, integrated the results of special physical examinations into renewal planning, and planned a batch of renewal and renovation projects related to people's livelihood, development, and safety. Since 2026, the province has planned 427 urban renewal projects with a total investment of about 330 billion yuan. In the first eight months of 2026, the province completed an investment of 16.55 billion yuan in area-based renewal.

Older residential communities have safety risks to varying degrees. Hainan has established a bottom-up project generation mechanism to promote the renovation of older residential communities. From 2019 to the end of 2025, the province cumulatively started the renovation of 2,193 older residential communities, benefiting 209,000 households, completed age-friendly renovation of 581 older residential communities, regularly implemented renovations such as the installation of handrails and the construction of barrier-free ramps, and promoted both the improvement of residential quality and disaster resilience. The 241 older residential communities planned for renovation in 2026 have now successively started construction. Since 2024, 4,000 aging residential elevators have been renewed, benefiting about 120,000 households.

In terms of digitally empowering resilient city development, Hainan has accelerated the construction of an urban CIM platform, built a comprehensive supervision system covering key areas such as urban underground municipal infrastructure and urban gas lifeline safety protection, and fortified the digital defense line for safe urban operation. It has promoted the popularization of the "Operation, Management and Service Snap Shot" application, deeply connected it with the 12345 government service hotline, established a fully closed-loop handling mechanism of hazard reporting, assignment and transfer, handling within a time limit, and result feedback, and broadened digital channels for social participation in urban governance.

At the same time, by advancing the second phase of the provincial urban operation management service platform, Hainan is building an integrated and trustworthy foundation for "digital housing and urban-rural development," promoting the deep integration and coordinated linkage of urban governance operations and disaster prevention and reduction work, and comprehensively improving the refinement and intelligence of urban governance.

Sun Shuhua also introduced that Hainan, based on the realities of a tropical island, is building a distinctive standards system. This includes issuing a series of local standards such as building waterproofing, steel structure anti-corrosion, and external doors and windows of civil buildings, filling the gap in disaster prevention standards for tropical island construction; issuing design guidelines for improving the wind and flood resistance of housing buildings, and promoting the relocation of power distribution rooms from lower floors to upper floors. In April 2026, the "Technical Guidelines for Good Housing in Hainan Province (Trial)" was issued to promote the upgrading of residential construction toward high-quality resilience and safety.

She said that the Hainan Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development will next continue to make efforts in areas such as urban infrastructure construction, urban renewal, renovation of older residential communities, digital empowerment, and improvement of the standards system, promote the safety and resilience upgrading of housing and municipal infrastructure, continuously improve disaster prevention and reduction capabilities, and provide solid guarantees for building safe and resilient homes.

Source: China News Service, Haikou