Friday, December 08, 2000, updated at 11:33(GMT+8)
Sci-Edu
China Develops Advanced Disaster Alert System in Flood-Prone Region
China has built an automatic disaster forecast system in central Hunan Province at the middle reaches of the Yangtze, the country's longest river.
The system consists of four Doppler weather radar, 240 automatic meteorological stations and affiliated devices jointly built by China Meteorological Administration and the Hunan Provincial Government.
The system, said to be in par with advanced world standard, is expected to demonstrate its effectiveness in the coming flood season in spring by providing accurate weather data, which will be as precise as per minute precipitation changes per square km, said Wang Kuojun director of the system's lab headquarters in Changsha, provincial capital of Hunan.
China's weather departments will rely on the system to make decisions on whether artificial weather intervention measures should be used to ward off natural disasters. China expects the radar system to directly reduce over 100 million yuan (about US$12 million) of losses caused by disasters annually.