Abstract
In order to study the effect of the construction of the sponge cites on the process of urban water circulation in China, we analyzed the precipitation data from 756 stations across China between 1961 and 2011 and national land-use data in 2014. The spatial distribution characteristics of built-up area and amount of annual average runoff interception in sponge cities were explored in five different zonal scale levels. Assuming that the sponge cities have been built at the national-level construction land and the volume capture ratio of annual runoff is taken as 85%, the amount of annual average runoff interception in sponge cities is 988.58 × 108 m3 during 1961 to 2011 in China, where the annual precipitation is greater than or equal to 400 mm. The cities with more amount of annual average runoff interception are mostly distributed in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta. As to the Haihe River Basin, the annual average amount of surface water resources is 135.69 × 108 m3 between 2005 and 2014, and the amount of annual average runoff interception is 219.58 × 108 m3 from 1961 to 2011. The construction of sponge cities has the greatest impact on the surface water resources in the Haihe River Basin. Taking 80%–85% as the volume capture ratio of annual runoff in sponge cities is not reasonable, which may lead to the irrational exploitation and utilization of regional water and soil resources.
Highlights
Rapid urbanization has become a critical issue in the 21st century [1, 2]
Based on the daily precipitation data obtained from 756 meteorological stations and 90 m × 90 m Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of China [25], spatial distribution of precipitation in China has been studied in this paper
The amount of annual average runoff interception in the Haihe River Basin is 219.58 × 108 m3, which is more than 1.6 times of the annual average surface water resources amount
Summary
Like China, urbanization has been considered as an index of development. Urbanization is one kind of the important land use and land cover changes on runoff and floods within watersheds are the main research topics in past few decades [3]. In China, the urbanization rate (the percentage of urban population) has increased from 12.5% to 50% from 1952 to 2011 [4]. The rapid expansion of built-up area has become the major feature of land-use changes in China, which has led to a built-up area vacancy and inefficient land uses [5, 6]. Statistical data showed that the urban population of China increased from 172.45 million to 777.82 million from 1978 to 2012, coupling with an increase of the urbanization level from 17.92% to 52.57%. The number of cities increased from 193 to 660 during this period [7]
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