Current situation and challenges of rainstorm warning system and emergency response management in urban region of Beijing

Both the rainstorm warning and the emergency response for flood disasters are the important non-structural measures in urban flood-control management. These contents were included in this study such as the overview, the achievement, the current challenge and the future improvement in the early warning and the emergency response managements to prevent flood disasters in Beijing urban area. In the overview, flood disaster frequency, the rainstorm warning indicators, as well as emergency response system were introduced. Although some improvements were attained, there were some problems that remain unsolved. (1) The frequency of issuing storm warning signals was much higher than the frequency of the urban flood during flood seasons. (2)Some storm warning signals were delayed. (3) The universal threshold values were not suitable. (4) The subjective experiences from flood-control department played important roles in the emergency response system. To address these issues, the improvement approaches were provided, including determining indicators for disaster-causing factors, enhancing rainstorm prediction accuracy, adjusting warning indicators for different regions, as well as improving pertinences of the emergency response management. Achievements mentioned above provide important technical supports for rainstorm warning and emergency response managements in urban regions.