Shanghai upgrades rainwater drainage system on 11 roads
This year's drainage system renovation project of Yaohong Road in Minhang District starts on Monday.
Shanghai is set to resolve major rainwater and drainage issues this year, as the city plans to renovate drainage systems on 11 roads. The plan has been included in public welfare improvement projects, the city's water authority unveiled on Monday.
Renovations are planned for Sanquan Road and Baoyuan Road in Jing'an District; Guangzhou Road and Jiutan Road in Yangpu District; Tongming Road in Hongkou District; Xingshan Road, Qingyu Road, Nanshiyi Road, Nanshisi Road in Putuo District; Yaohong Road in Minhang District; and Xitai Branch Road in Xuhui District.
The city will remove the old drainage pipes and replace them with newer, thicker, and stronger pipes.
This is the 25th year since 1998, when the city first launched the project to improve rainwater drainage issues.
Waving goodbye to foot-deep rainwater was certainly a positive step forward for residents, who have benefited from the renovation.
"In the past, when it rained, there would be serious water accumulation on Hongmei Road, sometimes it was up to your calves," Fang Ying, a resident who lives along Hongmei Road in Minhang District, told Shanghai Daily on Monday.
"There is an open market across the road, so it was a really hard time for us on rainy days."
She said since she moved in her apartment in 2018, every time it rained, it was like getting a "sea-view" of the road from her window, until last December when the drainage pipes on the road were upgraded.
The water-accumulated section of Hongmei Road in a rainy day before the renovation.
The drainage system renovation of Hongmei road section between Puhuitang and Wuzhong Road was one of the city's public welfare projects in last year, which started in last September and finished before the end of the year. The project removed the old 400-millimeter-diameter drainage pipes and replaced with 1000-millimeter pipes.
"Since the renovation was completed, there was no more water accumulation again," said Fang.
"What's more, the renovation project also re-laid the road surface as well as the pavement at the entrance of our complex."
Located at the southeast edge of the Yangtze River Delta region, Shanghai is often affected by typhoons, high tides, rainstorm and floods.
To help local residents get rid of the rainwater problem, starting from 2015, Shanghai conducted more than 10 similar projects every year.
There are 344 roads with about 175 kilometers of drainage pipelines laid in past years with a total investment of about 2.49 billion yuan (US$ 361.5 million). A large number of "bottleneck" problems in drainage systems have been solved.
