The Demographic Implication for Promoting Sponge City Initiatives in the Chinese Megacities: A Case of Wuhan

Rapid urbanization has sharply increased the pressure of urban water issues (e.g., urban flooding and water pollution) in the Chinese megacities during last three decades. Sustainable urban water management approaches, such as Nature Based Solutions (NBS) and Low Impact Developments (LIDs), have successfully delivered long-term benefits to cities in Europe and North America. Similarly, the Chinese Sponge City Program (SCP) initiated in 2013 and experimented in 30 pilot Chinese cities. This paper reviewed the first stage of the SCP from 2015 to 2020 by using observation, Semi-Structured Interview (SSI) and Focus Group Approach (FGA) in context of Gui'an New Distinct, SW China to investigate the SCP progress and issues: (1). whether it is effectively solving urban water issues; (2). if there are any major challenges and barriers in the SCP practice. The findings of this case study provide potential solutions for improving the SCP and sustainable urban water management and possibly transform to other Sponge Cities in China.

Home-buying decisions influenced by the implementation of nature-based solutions: The case of Sponge City, Guiyang SW China

Urban flooding has become a serious issue in most Chinese cities due to rapid urbanization and extreme weather, as evidenced by severe events in Beijing (2012), Ningbo (2013), Guangzhou (2015), Wuhan (2016), Shenzhen (2019), and Chongqing (2020). The Chinese “Sponge City Program” (SCP), initiated in 2013 and adopted by 30 pilot cities, is developing solutions to manage urban flood risk, purify stormwater, and provide water storage opportunities for future usage. Emerging challenges to the continued implementation of Sponge Cities include (1) uncertainty regarding future hydrological conditions related to climate change projections, which complicates urban planning and designing infrastructure that will be fit for purpose over its intended operating life, and (2) the competing priorities of stakeholders and their reluctance to make trade-offs, which obstruct future investment in the SCP. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) is an umbrella concept that emerged from Europe, which encourages the holistic idea of considering wider options that combine “Blue–Green” practices with traditional engineering to deliver “integrated systems of Blue–Green–Grey infrastructure”. NBS includes interventions making use of natural processes and ecosystem services for functional purposes, and this could help to improve current pilot SCP practices. This manuscript reviews the development of the SCP, focusing on its construction and design aspects, and discusses how approaches using NBS could be included in the SCP to tackle not only urban water challenges but also a wide range of social and environmental challenges, including human health, pollution (via nutrients, metals, sediments, plastics, etc.), flood risk, and biodiversity.

Flood management is a complex issue in Chinese cities that exhibit high populations and have undergone rapid urbanization. Urban flood management (UFM) approaches can be used to mitigate urban flood risk. To address urban issues of poor water quality and urban surface flooding, the Sponge City Program (SCP) was initiated in 2013 in China. The SCP aims to provide an opportunity for Chinese cities to improve their current UFM practices. This study looks at Guiyang (a pilot sponge city located in SW China) as a case study to identify the challenges and opportunities of UFM in China. Guiyang is a valley city surrounded by a hilly landscape. Using interview records and flood data, we illustrate that the primary type of flood in Guiyang is fluvial rather than surface water flooding. In Guiyang, the current function and targets of the SCP have yet to engage with the catchment level flood management, instead mainly focusing on the site-specific context (i.e., community level). Catchment flood management planning (CFMP) and natural flood management (NFM) both address this problem and may be a more suitable approach to manage flood discharge from the upper and middle catchments in Guiyang. In addition, it is suggested that a mixed option combining “hard” infrastructure (e.g., reservoirs and floodwalls) with “soft” flood management measures (e.g., improving people awareness and participation) may improve urban flood resilience in Chinese cities.

Exploring community perceptions and engagement of nature-based solutions: The case of Ningbo, a Chinese coastal sponge city

Comments and recommendations on Sponge City — China's solutions to prevent flooding risks

For managing the worsening urban water disasters in China, the Government of China proposed the concept of “Sponge City” in 2013 and initiated the strategy in 30 pilot cities from 2015. Despite the promise of the concept, there have been many challenges in implementing the “Sponge City” program (SCP). In this manuscript, we discuss the hydrology-related challenges in implementing the SCP. In particular, we consider two key challenges: (1) Determination of the “Volume Capture Ratio of Annual Rainfall” (VCRAR), as controlling urban stormwater runoff is one of the core targets of the SCP; and (2) Estimation of a proper rainfall threshold, which influences the layout of green-infrastructures in the SCP to achieve the core VCRAR target. To discuss these challenges, we consider the city of Beijing, the capital of China, as a case study. Our analysis shows that the trade-offs between the investment for the SCP and its potential economic benefits should be considered by undertaking a proper determination of VCRAR. The VCRAR estimated for Beijing from the present analysis is 0.73. This value is more reasonable than the empirical value of 0.80 that is presently used, as it can guarantee the positive rate of return on the investment. We also find that the nonstationary characteristics of rainfall data and their spatiotemporal differences are important for the estimation of the rainfall threshold in SCP. For instance, even using the daily rainfall data over a period of 30 years (1983–2012) in Beijing, as required by the National Assessment Standard, the estimated rainfall threshold of 27.3 mm underestimates the reasonable rainfall threshold that should at least be larger than 30.0 mm. Thus, the former cannot ensure the VCRAR target of 0.80. Based on these results, we offer proper approaches and key suggestions towards useful guidelines for delivering better SCP in the Chinese cities.

Chapter 18 - Nature-based solutions and sponge city for urban water management

<p>‘<em>Sponge City Program</em>’ (SCP) is the term used to describe the Chinese government’s approach to urban surface water management. The concept was conceived in 2014 in response to an increasing incidence of urban surface flooding in many Chinese cities. While ambitious and far-reaching in its aim (of reducing national flood risk, increasing water supply and improving water quality), the initiative must be implemented by individual sub-provincial or municipal-level government entities. The concept is similar to <em>Blue-Green Cities</em> (BGCs); <em>sustainable drainage systems</em> (SuDS) in the UK, it is developing with different regional climatic and hydrological characteristics, considering rapid urbanization. Indeed, the increasing use of national rather than international examples of best practice reflects a growing body of knowledge that has evolved since the start of the Sponge City initiative. The SCP so far now has run through 6 years and experience a transition on urban stormwater management and planning practices. In this paper, the implementation of the latest SCP guidelines will be presented that using the case of Ningbo and other Chinese cities to illustrate the transformation of the current SCP practices that undertaking the consideration of climate, environmental and socio-economic factors, and how the practice tackle challenges on governance, project financing, integration and assessment by the authorities and stakeholders. These valuable experiences will be vitally important influencing future urban stormwater management and planning practices in Chinese cities.</p>

The increasing of summer storm water-logging disasters has acutely threatened the sustainable urban development in China. Main reason was considered as severe rainfall in short time and the regional drainage capacity is insufficient. Therefore, overflow cannot be drained promptly. There is traditional strategy to solve this problem: drainpipe replacement project, in which existing drainpipe should be removed at first step and new larger diameter pipe would be installed. However, there is a new countermeasure emerged recently in Chinese cities. Its name is sponge city project. Drainpipe replacement project aims at enlarging the discharge of water when summer storm happens by broadening urban drain system and sponge city project aims at enlarging the absorption of water by increasing the curves of urban land. Although there are many studies on environmental impact estimate on drainpipe replacement program, study on environmental impact estimate on sponge city construction is insufficient, especially from life cycle perspective. This paper is trying to propose a LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) frame work on sponge city construction and make a cost-effective comparison analysis between drainpipes replacement and sponge city project. Finally, we have come to the conclusion that: first, without considering of environmental impact cost, the average cost for drainpipe replacement project is always lower than sponge city program, which demonstrates that drainpipe replacement project is more efficient. Second, with considering environmental impact cost, the point of inflection (18rd year) emerged. In first 17 years, the average cost for drainpipe replacement project is lower than sponge city project. However, from 18rd year the average cost for drainpipe replacement project became higher than sponge city project. This demonstrates that if residual life for existed drainpipe is longer than 18 years, sponge city program is more efficient. Otherwise, drainpipe replacement program is more efficient.

Meeting financial challenge facing China's Sponge City Program (SCP) – Hong Kong as a gateway to green finance

Catchment floods are more challenging due to intensive urbanization and climate change. Enlightened by the Low Impact Development (LID), China initiated the Sponge City Program (SCP) to transform Urban Flood Management (UFM) to be more environmentally friendly in 2013. The China National Government (CNG) has subsidized municipal SCP facilities to enhance urban flood resilience while delivering multiple co‐benefits for urban ecosystems and social well‐being. Recent floods at Schleiden (Germany), Arizona State (USA), and Zhengzhou (China) in 2021 reflected the necessity of Catchment Flood Management (CFM) to cover the whole catchment scale. The SCP, designed to handle small‐scale urban pluvial floods, has brought concerns when facing larger‐scale fluvial floods after the Zhengzhou 2021 flood. Indeed, catchment‐scale Natural Flood Management (NFM) can manage fluvial floods while improving flood adaptations sustainably from upstream to downstream reaches. This research develops a new framework named the Sponge Catchment Management Plan (SCMP), including structural and Nonstructural elements. On the structural side, the SCMP framework integrates NFM with the SCP and Grey Engineering (GE) for reducing the fluvial flood discharge peaks in the whole‐catchment scale. On the nonstructural side, the SCMP encourages collaborative governance, revising technical standards, and improving “bottom‐up” participation. This research used Semi‐Structured Interviews (SSIs) and a Focus Group Approach (FGA) to explore 62 professional and Nonprofessional stakeholders’ perspectives on the SCMP framework. Some professional respondents did not know much about the NFM and were worried about the effectiveness of this practice. But most interviewees supported the SCMP pilot work and shared the co‐benefits from the NFM. This case study at the SW China, Guiyang, could be a lesson to encourage other Chinese cities further implement SCP to improve catchment‐scale flood resilience.

‘Sponge City’ is the term used to describe the Chinese government’s approach to urban surface water management. The concept was conceived in 2014 in response to an increasing incidence of urban surface flooding in many Chinese cities. While ambitious and far-reaching in its aim (of reducing national flood risk, increasing water supply and improving water quality), the initiative must be implemented by individual municipal-level government entities. In this seminar, Faith will provide the latest updates on the urban flood conditions of Chinese cities. The latest response and recovery processes will be introduced such as using the case from the Ningbo and the success of improving flood resilience. Through climate, environmental and socio-economic factors such as media analytics and socio-technological approaches such as NBS and Urban Agriculture rather than only relying on conventional engineering solutions. These practices can all influence how the National guidelines are implemented (governance), and better integration and assessment are found to contribute a better urban future in China and elsewhere. 

Rapid urbanization in China has caused severe water and environmental problems in recent years. To resolve the issues, the Chinese government launched a sponge city construction program in 2015. While the sponge city construction initiative is drawing attention and is spreading fast nationwide, some challenges and risks remain. This study surveyed progress of all 30 pilot sponge cities and identified a broad array of challenges from technical, physical, regulatory, and financial, to community and institutional. The most dominant challenges involve uncertainties and risks. To resolve the issues, this study also identified various opportunities to improve China’s sponge city construction program. Based on the results, recommendations are proposed including urging local governments to adopt sponge city regulations and permits to alleviate water quality and urban pluvial flooding issues, fully measuring and accounting for economic and environmental benefits, embracing regional flexibility and results-oriented approaches, and focusing on a wider range of funding resources to finance the sponge city program. Coordination among other government agencies is critical, and this is true at all level of governments. Only through greater coordination, education, and broader funding could the sponge city program be advanced meaningfully and sustainably.

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 “海绵城市”建设的关键科学问题与思考 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201704220730 作者: 作者单位: 中国科学院生态环境研究中心,中国科学院生态环境研究中心 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金重点资助项目（71533004，71734006）；国家重点研发计划资助项目（2016YFC0502800） The key scientific issues and thinking on the construction of “Sponge City” Author: Affiliation: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences,Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:"海绵城市"是学术界、政府和企业界特别关注的热点之一，具有有效防止城市雨洪灾害、改善水生态和水环境、提高生物多样性等多方面的服务功能，有助于城市社会经济发展。在目前全国范围内发生城市内涝的严重情况下，科学地进行"海绵城市"建设显得尤为重要。对"海绵城市"的研究背景、概念与内涵、建设途径、主要技术、国内发展现状等进行了总结和归纳，并提出"海绵城市"建设的关键科学问题，并进行深入思考，建立"SPONGE"框架来概括整个"海绵城市"的建设内容，为今后的"海绵城市"研究和建设提供参考。 Abstract:"Sponge City" has emerged as a hot scientific and governmental research topic given its ability to effectively control disasters resulting from urban storm water and flooding. "Sponge City" not only supplies groundwater and addresses water shortages but also improves urban water environments, biodiversity, and urban landscapes, all of which contribute to the development of an urban economy and society. Accordingly, "Sponge City" has become a principal force in the new generation of urban construction projects. The scientific construction of a "Sponge City" has become especially important in light of the recent urban flooding in the country. This paper summarizes the background, concept, and connotation of "Sponge City" construction, its relationship with ecological infrastructure, its construction route, and its main technology. We identified several key scientific issues and a construction perspective for "Sponge City" based on four aspects, including improving the ecosystem services of "Sponge City," identifying valuation indicators and establishing a management system, and promoting awareness. This paper identified issues related to the construction of "Sponge City" and examines how its contents must be improved in the future. We also advanced the overall framework of "SPONGE," which includes service, participation, organization, natural ecology, green infrastructure, and ecological pattern. The key contents and vital parts of a "Sponge City" are generalized from this framework, which is expected to provide important materials for further research on this topic. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献