The government has been increasing its investment in flood control projects since the devastating floods of 1998, when more than 4,000 people were killed. But the efforts are not enough considering the scale and difficulty of such a complex project.

The world's largest dam will not cure all problems. Just like it showed this year after the 16-year project was finished and put into full operation, floods remain a threat in many places.

Beside building dams and raising the dikes on riverbanks, the government should spend more on preserving forest along the river.

Rainwater washes more than 500 million tons of sand into the river each year, continuously raising the riverbed, forcing the local authorities to build even higher dikes, and making the stakes higher if a dike breaks.

Fighting floods is a comprehensive engineering project. Experiences in Europe indicated that only when countries or regions along a river work together can they achieve their goals.

Just as China's economic success would not have happened without the joint efforts of all provinces from north to south, harnessing the raging river will not succeed if cities and villages from west to east do not work as a whole.

The tragedies in the past few years may be a result of disconnected treating efforts, or some shortsighted local development projects that catered to local interests only and ignored the im-pact on the entire water body.

Let's start working as one on our mother river.