The State Council approved on April 6 an overall plan to further harness China's small and medium-sized rivers and reinforce dilapidated reservoirs to prevent large, flood-triggered geological disasters.

Over the next five years, China will address prominent problems in more than 5,000 small and medium-sized rivers with a minimum drainage area of 200 square km each, 300 large and medium-sized dilapidated reservoirs as well as 20,000 small ones.

Measures will also be taken to improve the conditions of more than 2,000 large and medium-sized dilapidated water gates as well as the conditions of protective embankments and flood storage and retention areas in Dongting and Poyang lakes in the south.