Investigation and evaluation of mountain torrent disasters in Yunnan Province, China

AbstractYunnan Province is at the border of southwestern China, and mountains account for 84% of its land area, with complex terrain and geological conditions. Affected by human activities and other factors, it is prone to floods, debris flows, landslides and other mountain torrent disasters in storm events. This paper describes the necessity for recent surveys of mountain flood disasters. According to such a survey, the prevention and control area of mountain torrent disasters is 188,974 km2, with 175.7 million hm2 of cultivated land and 969,000 houses. There were 4,073 torrential disasters, and 2,608 mountain torrent ditches in need of control in the prevention and control area.