In China, Bourdrez was mainly involved in road construction from 1931 to 1933. Together with his Polish League of Nations colleague Mieczysław Okęcki, Bourdrez advised the Chinese government on the construction of the first network of paved roads connecting the major cities in eastern China. From 1933 on, Bourdrez became increasingly involved in hydraulic engineering. At the time, China regularly had to deal with massive floods. The flooding in Central China in 1931 was particularly catastrophic, resulting in between 400,000 and 4 million deaths. Chinese Finance Minister Tse-Ven Soong had managed to obtain a loan in kind from the United States, known as the "Cotton and Wheat Loan". The US got rid of its surplus cotton and grain and the Chinese government sold the cotton and grain to its own people or paid workers in kind. This includes financing hydraulic engineering projects. Bourdrez traveled to every corner of China to see the rivers with his own eyes. He advised directly to the Chinese water management service on the implementation of projects, but also on the accumulation of knowledge. On his initiative a course for further training of graduated young Chinese engineers was set up. In addition, Bourdrez contributed to the creation of hydrographic and geodesic departments. The geodesic department was badly needed, because there were no reliable maps for large parts of China. The later Prime Minister, Professor Willem Schermerhorn, was brought to China by Bourdrez in 1936 to help translate the aerial images into maps.