Heavy rainfall continues to batter southwestern China, bringing floods to the Yangtze River's tributaries the Minjiang and the Jialing. It is affecting Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality. Now the country is trying a new approach called "sponge cities" in a bid to soak up rainwater and release it slowly into rivers and reservoirs. And Singapore is considered a successful example of a "sponge city", effectively incorporating rainwater into city functions. What can China learn from this? Chen Long, a post-doctoral research associate in Urban and Rural Planning at Tsinghua University's School of Architecture, elaborates the permeable pavements, wetland parks and underground storage tanks in Singapore.