The meanings of Sponge City and LID Technology are explained followed by an analysis of the Sponge City and LID ideas in Chinese and world history. Recent developments of planning and design techniques for LID are summarized. Effects and limits of Sponge City and LID are explained on behalf of Chinese and international examples. Further some advice for best planning and design strategies including principles for merging technical and landscape / urban planning issues are given. Finally, experiences with practical designs and different projects are reviewed, highlighting what is needed to improve practice of Sponge City and LID theories.
In December 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke at the Central Working Conference of Urbanization where he highlighted the significance of "building Sponge Cities where stormwater can be naturally conserved, infiltrated, and purified". Since this announcement, Sponge City construction has increased throughout the country. In October 2014, following publication of "Sponge City Construction Technology Guidelines", the Ministries of Finance, Housing and Urban-rural Development, and Water Resources collectively initiated a Sponge City pilot program. In conjunction with future development of Sponge Cities, the policy will gradually and eventually become a local government decision-making from a central government decision-making. Most recently, scholars, planners, and designers from economics, planning, landscape, and water conservancy met to discuss public policy regarding Sponge City implementation, future problems, and potential solutions. Based on the discussions of the forum, six questions are summarized towards the related issues of Sponge City construction.
Zhenjiang City is located at the confluence of the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal in Jiangsu Province. Faced with water logging and non-point pollution in the urban areas, Zhenjiang has begun to incorporate low-impact development (LID) strategies to address rainwater management issues in built areas. In this dialogue, Professor Dihua Li raises important points about urban policy, public participation, and financial support for Sponge City construction. Jian Hu, Director of Zhenjiang Drainage Management Division, responds from the governmental perspective, explaining local difficulties in Sponge City implementation and sharing Zhenjiang's experience and lessons in their practices.
One of the most important topics in the design industry nowadays centers on the integration of water management, ecology and landscape in design proposals in order to improve water quality, reconstruct habitats, restore a healthy and natural water ecosystem, and to achieve a sustainably long-run landscape performance through using ecological techniques. Beijing ZEHO Waterfront City Planning and Design Institute used the recently completed Shengxi Lake Wetland Park project in Xiaoyi as a case study, sharing their innovative technical measures, cross-disciplinary thinking, and performance evaluation methods. This project transformed an area suffering from deterioration of water quality, deposition of sediment, and a severely damaged ecological environment into a wetland park full of vitality, through the integration of hydrodynamic modeling, wetlands purification, habitat restoration, and stormwater management.
The concept for the Jinan New Urban District is balance — balance between man and nature, between protecting natural resources and utilizing them for our daily needs, and building space sold for profit and space that contributes to the wealth of humankind. Symbolically represented by interlocking fingers, the plan provides maximum contact between development and the landscape. Building upon lessons learned from the historical vernacular, this configuration connects residents to the landscape while providing a resilient framework for accommodating flood risk, increasing the value of the development and enhancing the quality of life for its residents.
In Harbin a new urban wetland park was created to manage storm runoff and wastewater from a local treatment plant. In addition to the productive wetland, active recreational uses, pedestrian paths and resting groves were incorporated into the design. Cattle were also introduced as a method of agricultural husbandry that is both productive and low maintenance. The park design transforms an otherwise "messy" nature into a cherished urban park that is intensively used by urban residents year round.
With industrial development and urban redistricting, industrial areas have moved out of cities, leaving fragmented “brownfield scars”. Land recultivation at a former mining and cement plant near the town of Dormettingen has resulted in creation of a new “Shale Experience Park”. The project involves brownfield remediation and helps create a sustainable future for the landscape through stormwater management.
As one of the first revitalization projects since the devastation of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the 3.1-mile linear Lafitte Greenway will become a vibrant, multi-model transportation corridor linking residents to the heart of New Orleans, Louisiana. The landscape architect led a multi-disciplinary effort—incorporating public input, synthesizing many measurable objectives and working across a range of scales— to transform an old industrial rail corridor into a celebrated Greenway.
Raycom City, a new mixed-use development area in Hefei with 35,000 residents covering 50 hectares, has a 1-kilometer linear park as its heart which contributes to the area's livability and identity while slowing and cleansing 20% or more of the rain water on the site.
To capitalize on the range of opportunities for economic revitalization in emerging tropical economies, Wet Grounds: Emerging Landscapes of Storage, investigates the urban development patterns that are characteristic of tropical latitudes and identifies those which support the growth of hydraulic accumulation methods throughout the region. Utilizing the Chao Phraya River Plain in Thailand (Fig.1) as a testing ground and looking to storage as both an ecological and economic strategy, this design research project outlines a two-prong water storage strategy. Primarily, the strategy aims to expand methods of retention, distribution, and circulation of rainwater. Secondly, the strategy develops ways to manage water flows often caused by urbanization, occurring in the manufacturing corridors of river deltas. These two aims are achieved while developing ways of managing water through agricultural and industrial systems that enable the economic diversification of local markets (Fig. 2). Wet Grounds reveals an opportunity to foster new urbanization networks in Thailand. Given a landscape facing industrial growth and climate complexities, different water storage infrastructures will work to support emerging industries and farms. Within this developing field of hydrologic infrastructure, distinctive industrial nodes provide the flexible and logistical capacity of landscapes of hydraulic accumulation as a process for capital generation (Fig. 3). Wet grounds emphasizes the need to build a contemporary climatic and spatial strategy that utilizes rainwater storage to support responsible water management for agricultural, industrial, and domestic uses at the regional level.
Natural waste recycling processes are often out of sight and out of mind of the general public, especially as they relate to the treatment of human waste. Wetlands Work!, a social enterprise① based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, designed the Urban Wetland Pissoir (UWP) to encourage awareness of natural waste degradation processes, promote low-tech ideas for treatment of urban waste flows, and link function to aesthetics. The UWP was set up during Phnom Penh’s Our City Festival 2012, as a functioning prototype of a self-contained urine treatment system. A simple private cubicle made of bamboo and thatch is used by one individual at a time. The urine is conducted into an adjacent see-through pool, filled with beautiful local wetland plant species that use it as a nutrient. The message for users: urbanization is not a separation from nature’s ecological functional and aesthetic services.