“At this rate, river improvements will take 108 years” ... Chungnam Province doubles its budget, cutting the timeline by 50 years

[Financial News, Hongseong = Reporter Kim Won-jun] Chungnam Province is stepping up work on local river improvement projects to address extreme rainfall and torrential downpours, which have become more frequent amid the climate crisis. It will substantially increase annual spending to bring forward by more than half the completion of rivers that have yet to be improved.
According to Chungnam Province on the 7th, it plans to increase annual funding for local river improvement projects to around 200 billion won, reducing the overall improvement period from 108 years to 50 years or less. With flood risks around local rivers rising amid sudden, intense downpours caused by recent climate change, the province aims to protect residents’ lives and property through proactive flood-control projects.
The current annual budget for improving local rivers in Chungnam Province is around 110 billion won. At this pace, it would take 108 years, arithmetically, to improve all the rivers in the province that have yet to be addressed.
Accordingly, Chungnam Province plans to invest a total of 11.9 trillion won in phases to improve 394 rivers—comprising 485 project areas and spanning a total of 1,280.86 kilometers—out of the province’s 491 local rivers, excluding the 97 where work has been completed. This month, it will begin new projects in seven areas rated as high-risk under its comprehensive improvement plan: Yeokcheon and Sodeulcheon in Dangjin, Masancheon in Nonsan, Wangpocheon in Buyeo, Inghwadalcheon in Cheongyang, Galhyeoncheon in Seosan, and Gisa-cheon in Geumsan. The projects have a combined budget of 218.6 billion won.
Going forward, Chungnam Province plans to continue identifying new improvement projects worth around 200 billion won each year, while also selecting additional areas in urgent need of work through a competition among city and county governments to further accelerate the projects.
Shin Dong-heon, head of Chungnam Province’s Disaster and Safety Office, said, “We will substantially expand funding for improvement projects and swiftly address the areas with the highest investment priority first.” He added, “We will do everything we can to prevent flood damage by completing improvements in all 485 project areas within 50 years.”
Meanwhile, local rivers, which have long received lower priority for funding and management than national rivers, have been considered disaster-prone areas because their levees are low and their channels narrow, leading to repeated river overflows and levee washouts during sudden downpours. In particular, flooding along local rivers near rural areas often inundates farmland and leaves entire nearby villages isolated. Calls have therefore continued for local governments to increase their own budgets and for the central government to expand national funding support.

[email protected] Kim Won-jun Reporter