Experiences in cross-regional collaborative response to rainstorm disasters! To be promoted nationwide!
Recently, the China Meteorological Administration issued a notice requiring meteorological departments in various regions to study the "Regulations on Early Warning and Response to Rainstorm Disasters in Meizhou City" and the "Regulations on Early Warning and Response to Rainstorm Disasters in Longyan City" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") in light of their local conditions, learn from the advanced experience of regional collaborative response to rainstorm disasters in Meizhou, Guangdong and Longyan, Fujian, actively promote the effective connection of rainstorm disaster early warning and response mechanisms, and accelerate the construction of a cross-regional collaborative full-chain governance model for rainstorm disaster prevention.
What are the highlights of the practices in Meizhou and Longyan? What problems did they solve? And why were they promoted nationwide?
The early implementation stems from the urgent need for coordinated defense against rainstorm disasters.
On December 1, 2025, the "Regulations on Rainstorm Disaster Warning and Response in Meizhou City" and the "Regulations on Rainstorm Disaster Warning and Response in Longyan City" were reviewed and approved by the Standing Committees of the Guangdong and Fujian Provincial People's Congresses, respectively, and came into effect simultaneously.
Prior to this, there was no precedent for cross-provincial collaborative legislation among meteorological departments nationwide.
Li Jiangang, deputy director of the Longyan Meteorological Bureau, said that the groundbreaking progress of the first cross-provincial collaborative legislation by meteorological departments nationwide being implemented in Longyan and Meizhou reflects the urgent need for rainstorm prevention in both places.
Longyan and Meizhou are adjacent to each other, and are upstream and downstream of each other's weather systems. They are affected by the same weather systems year-round and face the challenges of severe weather such as rainstorms, typhoons, and strong convection. The Tingjiang River, which originates in Longyan, is the largest tributary of the Hanjiang River, the largest river in eastern Guangdong. As the upstream water, the flow of the Tingjiang River directly determines the water supply security and flood risk of cities along the downstream Hanjiang River.
On June 17, 2024, villagers in Tanjiang Town, Fengshun County, Meizhou City, were organized to evacuate. (Photo provided by Meizhou City Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters Office)"Both regions have numerous mountainous areas, and once it rains, the unique topography and landforms can easily trigger flash floods and geological disasters. Moreover, the impact of these disasters crosses administrative boundaries, creating a natural governance dilemma," admitted Zheng Weijie, director of the Meizhou Meteorological Bureau. He added that the meteorological departments of the two regions had already conducted numerous explorations before the regulations were issued.
In the 1980s, the meteorological departments of the two regions began to explore cross-provincial joint weather defense, jointly participate in the South China rainstorm experiment and the South China Sea typhoon comprehensive collaborative observation experiment, and carry out cooperation in the research of rainstorm mechanism and forecasting technology, forming a joint force.
In 2023, the two regions established a joint meteorological operation mechanism for the Hanjiang River Basin, and successively clarified a series of working rules. They jointly built a cross-provincial joint prevention and control mechanism for rain and flood risk early warning and artificial rain enhancement operations in the Tingjiang River Basin of Fujian and the Hanjiang River Basin of Guangdong, so that cross-regional cooperation is based on rules and regulations.
Through a series of explorations, the meteorological departments of the two regions gradually realized that only by solidifying these effective cooperation mechanisms through legislation could they truly achieve a higher level of "synchronized early warning and synchronized response." The path for cross-regional collaborative legislation has already taken shape.
Seeking common ground while reserving differences, learning from each other, and working together to solve problems.
Regional collaborative legislation has precedents. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, some local people's congresses have taken the lead in piloting and actively exploring regional collaborative legislation, achieving significant practical results and accumulating valuable experience. In March 2023, the First Session of the 14th National People's Congress adopted the "Decision on Amending the Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China," with Article 83 confirming the legal system of regional collaborative legislation for the first time. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee further proposed "exploring regional collaborative legislation," all of which provide fundamental guidance for the two regions to solve the challenges of cross-regional disaster governance.
"The prevention of basin-wide rainstorm disasters cannot be based solely on administrative divisions," said Yang Yang, head of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Meizhou Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee, highlighting the key point when reviewing the original intention of the legislation.
To explore cross-regional collaborative legislation for the prevention and control of rainstorm disasters in the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River, Lan Weidong, Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Meizhou Municipal People's Congress, led a team to Longyan for a special investigation from August 15 to 16, 2024. Officials from the People's Congress, meteorological, emergency management, and water resources departments of the two cities gathered together to conduct in-depth exchanges on the core issues of collaborative legislation and explore this pioneering legislative practice.
On August 15, 2024, the Standing Committees of the People's Congresses of Longyan and Meizhou signed a regional collaborative legislative cooperation agreement in Longyan. (Photo provided by Longyan People's Congress)"The path to collaboration is not something that can be achieved overnight." Yang Yang explained that during the legislative process, the legislative team adhered to the principle of "seeking common ground while reserving differences and learning from each other." They conducted in-depth research and explored solutions to the common problems faced by the two regions after the implementation of the regulations, such as how to quickly notify the downstream after a flood occurs upstream and how to communicate with the downstream in a timely manner when the upstream reservoir releases floodwaters.
"The two people's congresses conducted joint research and maintained synchronization in key stages such as project initiation, drafting, and deliberation," said Huang Peng, head of the Legislative Affairs Section of the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the Longyan Municipal People's Congress. He added that the "Regulations" effectively addressed issues such as difficulties in cross-provincial coordination and system unification, conflicts between river basin governance and administrative barriers, and risks related to grassroots implementation and accountability, providing a reference model for various departments at the grassroots level to defend against rainstorms.
"The promulgation of the Regulations marks a shift in the disaster prevention and mitigation model of the two regions from the past segmented defense and passive response to basin-wide joint governance and proactive defense," Huang Peng said.
"After the implementation of the Regulations, we established a joint prevention and control mechanism for the river basin with Wuping County, Longyan," said Xie Chonghao, deputy director of the Emergency Management Bureau of Pingyuan County, Meizhou City. "Through real-time data sharing, consultation and judgment, and collaborative efforts, we have effectively solved the problem of the 'information depression' at the provincial border, enabling towns and villages to obtain upstream rainfall information in advance and gain a critical window of opportunity for evacuation and risk avoidance."
On November 13, 2024, the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the Longyan Municipal People's Congress conducted a collaborative legislative research trip to Guangfu Town, Jiaoling County, Meizhou. (Photo provided by Longyan People's Congress)This sets a precedent for collaborative legislation and provides a model for cross-regional joint prevention and control of meteorological disasters.
"The practices in Meizhou and Longyan are beneficial explorations for cross-provincial and regional collaborative legislation across the country, and also a model for regional collaborative legislation in the field of meteorological disaster prevention nationwide," said a relevant official from the Disaster Reduction Service Department of the China Meteorological Administration. This provides new ideas and valuable lessons for various regions to establish and improve emergency response and social response mechanisms led by rainstorm disaster warnings, as well as to carry out rainstorm disaster prevention work.
In the legislative process of the Regulations, Meizhou and Longyan incorporated the disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief concepts of "two insistences and three transformations" throughout the system design. Based on the cross-regional linkage characteristics of river basin rainstorm disasters, a dedicated chapter on "Regional Cooperation" was included to jointly construct a dual-track mechanism of "regional collaboration + river basin governance." Through the establishment of a five-dimensional collaborative system encompassing government coordination, departmental special cooperation, grassroots neighboring area linkage, regional joint prevention and control, and people's congress collaborative supervision, the two cities have promoted the joint construction of monitoring facilities, sharing of early warning information, and joint coordination of emergency resources, thereby jointly enhancing their joint prevention and control capabilities for meteorological disasters.
In terms of optimizing the early warning and response mechanism, the system enables "one-click triggering" of disaster emergency response. The regulations in both regions cover the early warning, response, and related management activities for rainstorms and their resulting disasters. They clearly define the issuing bodies and corresponding emergency response measures for various types of early warnings, including rainstorm warnings, geological disaster meteorological risk warnings, flood warnings, and flash flood risk warnings, forming an emergency linkage mechanism led by meteorological early warnings. This mechanism connects the entire chain of rainstorm disaster prevention—"pre-disaster prevention, in-disaster response, and post-disaster reconstruction"—effectively solving the past problems of isolated early warning information for different disaster types and disconnected or repetitive response actions, significantly shortening the decision-making chain for disaster response.
To further strengthen the grassroots responsibility system and achieve targeted defense against rainstorm disasters, the regulations in both regions have taken refined governance as a breakthrough, focusing on key links and vulnerable groups in grassroots defense, opening up the responsibility transmission chain, establishing a flood control responsibility system, and ensuring that grassroots defense responsibilities reach the "nerve endings" of emergency response, so as to achieve "early warnings to townships, plans to villages, and responsibilities to individuals".
Meanwhile, the Regulations firmly establish a bottom-line mentality and an extreme mentality, fully recognize the new risks, new problems and new challenges brought about by extreme weather, emphasize the principle of "townships fighting on their own and villages fighting on their own," require them to combine their respective emergency plans and work responsibilities to take corresponding response measures, quickly carry out emergency response work, realize "one-click triggering" of disaster emergency response work, and build a new pattern of "targeted defense".
An official from the Policy and Regulation Department of the China Meteorological Administration also introduced that, in addition to Meizhou and Longyan, Huangshan City in Anhui Province, Quzhou City in Zhejiang Province, Nanping City in Fujian Province, and Shangrao City in Jiangxi Province are currently promoting collaborative legislation on regulations for rainstorm warnings and responses. Chongqing and Sichuan are also collaboratively promoting legislation on meteorological information services in the Sichuan-Chongqing region.
Authors: Zhao Na, Guo Qing, Zeng Huijuan (Arts Department)
Source: China Meteorological Administration WeChat Official Account
