Abstract:Extreme precipitation, which can cause waterlogging, block traffic and harm residents' health in urban areas, has increased with ongoing global climate change. We used precipitation data of 917 meteorological stations during 1951-2014 to estimate changes in extreme precipitation in China, and created a system to evaluate 289 primary local cities' pressures of different time and different RCPs on urban drainage systems under heavy rainfall in China. The results show that extreme precipitation is increasing in China with global warming, and the annual maximum precipitation is increasing by 0.06mm/a. However, these increases are not uniform across China. In some areas of North China, extreme precipitation has even declined while south areas are becoming serious. Pressures on the drainage systems of cities are greater in the south and northeast than in the north and west because of patterns of precipitation in China. In North China, pecuniary losses caused by waterlogging and flooding in cities are greater where precipitation is more random. Urbanization construction also impacts drainage pressure; cities in the east and along the coasts, which have better infrastructure to manage waterlogging, have less pressure on their drainage systems. These pressures will increase about 2.9% after 20 years later relatively to present situations of climate change, and concretely there are 75 local cities in China whose pressures are increased absolutely. Pressures on drainage systems in China are projected to increase in the future under both RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, although RCP8.5 is associated with greater pressure, which indicates that mitigation of climate change may decrease waterlogging and flooding in China. Cities in North China will benefit from climate change in terms of reduced pressure on drainage systems, and will have lower risks of waterlogging in the future. The risks of waterlogging are highest in southern cities, and are projected to increase in the future with climate change. The government should focus on such cities with greater pressures on their drainage system to protect economic development from the risks of waterlogging.