Cities are suffering from more floods than ever, causing huge loss of life and property. The reason is that modern cities often lack resilience to the uncertainty of natural disasters. Aquatic ecosystems on the whole are unhealthy. As global climate change intensifies, aquatic ecosystems are facing more severe challenges. The author explains the necessity to cope with water-related issues holistically, and contends that aquatic ecosystems should be evaluated, protected, and restored based on the understanding of ecosystem services they provide. The water security patterns at macro, medium, and micro levels help improve the resilience of aquatic ecosystems, restore the aquatic and hydrophytic habitats, reconstruct the harmony and symbiosis between water systems and humans, and nourish the health and prosperity of ecological civilization.
In process-based restoration, the objective is not to create a complex river form directly; instead, interventions are intended to “prompt” the natural processes to restore such forms. The improvements in ecological conditions are actually made over time by flowing water during floods (using the stream’s energy), and by the growth of riparian vegetation (using incoming solar energy). On the Aire River in Geneva, ecological function was restored to a formerly canalized river by providing the river with an espace de liberté. A grid of channels cut into the valley bottom allowed the river to freely flood, erode its bed and banks, and deposit bars, creating complex surfaces on which riparian vegetation established to support the food web of the riverine ecosystem. The diamond-shaped bits of land left between these channels (“lozenges”) gradually erode and evolve as the river migrates, creating complex channel forms. The Isar River in Munich restoration involved adding coarse sediment load, creating erodible bed and banks in place of formerly rigid boundaries, expanding process space for river migration, erosion, and deposition, and increased human access to the river over 8 km. Since restoration, natural transport of sediment has resulted in deposition of gravel bars, whose forms evolve during floods, supporting diverse habitats. The Isar and Aire Rivers provide compelling examples of processbased restoration meeting 4 criteria for process-based restoration: space, energy, materials, and time. They demonstrate the possibilities of urban river restoration to achieve both ecological and social goals through restoration of fluvial process.
Water culture is one of the key issues in Water Ecological Civilization. China’s traditional water cultural landscape embodies rich water cultures, and have a significance in related research and protection practice. This paper proposes the concept of “water cultural landscape,” that is, the landscape formed through humans’ environmental alteration during water activities—including how people use, transform, and manage it. The traditional water cultural landscapes in Huizhou Region have developed over hundreds of years, reflecting the locals’ wisdom in sustainable water use. The water cultural landscape in Huizhou Region should be interpreted as a systematic notion, in which all landscape elements such as ponds, weirs, and shuikous are interdependent, composing the landscape components e.g. valleys, hills, and basins, and establishing water security patterns for cities, towns, villages, and for production. The traditional water cultural landscape in Huizhou Region requires local generations’ long-term maintenance and management, and in turn it is also vital to Huizhou people's life and Huizhou culture. Today, it acts as an ecological infrastructure for sponge countryside and sponge city construction, and an important resource for heritage protection and tourism development.
Daodi Flood Land, located in Mentougou District of Beijing, is a relatively separate flood land in the lower reaches and on the east of Yonding River. This largest landscape character area in the west of Beijing along the river illustrates the history of human–water interaction and discloses the trends and problems of rural urbanization. Focusing on Daodi Flood Land, this paper expands the research on adaptation by introducing basic concepts and research framework, and reviews the research trends from spatial, temporal, and participant aspects. Considering the typical characters of the study area, this research employed participatory approaches, such as mapping and problem and solution trees, due to the lack of continuous and accurate data. Basing on literature review and field investigation on issues of floods, agricultural irrigation, and water resource utilization, water adaptive development visions for the study area were proposed from perspectives of landscape and culture. Finally, the paper further analyzes the structural relations between adaptation problems, natural and social systems, passive and active adaptations, and planned and unplanned adaptations, with the aim to provide reference for relevant studies and applications of adaptation approaches in other cases.
With the revolution of information technology greatly changing contemporary’s lifestyle, smartphone becomes a necessity to more and more people, and individuals’ screen time is increasing as people are spending more time on the virtual world. Through literature review, this paper proposes a hypothesis that there is a correlation between smartphone screen time and walking step counts, which is verified through an exploratory research: data of walking step counts and screen usage were widely collected by online and onsite questionnaires, and the analyses reveal that 1) when daily screen time ranges from 4.99 to 15.25 hours, it is negatively correlated with daily walking step counts; 2) the respondents’ average daily screen time is 6.3 hours, more of which (2.8 hours) is spent on social Apps, and their average daily walking step counts are 6,750 (takes nearly 0.8 hour); 3) daily screen time and walking step counts at weekends are less than those on weekdays; 4) people with higher education level, higher income, or younger age use screen less daily; people with higher education level, lower exercise frequency, or younger age walk less daily, so these factors are likely to affect the correlation between daily screen time and daily walking step counts. The correlation of both behaviors and the affecting factors need to be further clarified, and the impact of physical environmental elements on walking also requires more attention.
This article first introduces the development of China’s urban water system management and the Sponge City construction. Generally speaking, China’s urban water system management has progressively turned into addressing water problems with integrated solutions, with the focus shifting from problem finding towards objective-setting and emphasizing theoretical significance. Meanwhile, the evaluation criterion has adopted more indicators valuing the quality and efficiency of projects’ actual performance, rather than a rough quantitative measurement. Then this article addresses the potential reasons for the public questioning China’s Sponge City construction since the implementation of pilot projects in 2015, such as the misunderstanding of its connotation, public perception of the projects’ actual environmental performance, and construction quality. Only by recognizing the reality and identifying difficulties and primary goals, can the targeted and systematic solutions solving on-site water relevant problems and meeting public needs be proposed. In response, the authors put forward the major difficulties in future Sponge City construction promotion, which include 1) coordinating the Sponge City construction and urban storm water management to facilitate onsite runoff retention and address urban waterlogging problems; 2) establishing a whole-process management system for China’s Sponge City construction projects that involves a series of stages; 3) identifying the accountability and responsibilities of the administration, design, and construction parties; and 4) updating knowledge and technical perception. Furthermore, the authors emphasized the importance of expertise collaboration and talent training to provide professionals with ability in practice, in-depth inter-professional and technical coordination, and active learning. Finally, the authors encouraged the key topics in the future—introduction of new market mechanisms such as storm water billing system, optimization of the current policy mechanism, and institutionalization of Sponge City construction.
The historical fisheries and the speedy urban development have dramatically threatened the ecological resources of Jianyang Lake in Zhejiang Province—the original texture of the site was largely damaged, the lake was severely polluted, and the Ardeidae habitats were badly degraded. To improve the water quality and restore the habitats of Jianyang Lake, as well as represent the scenery of groups of Ardeidae inhabiting there, the design team restored existing polder wetlands through NatureBased Solutions and set up a 16 hm2 Start-up Area of the Jianyang Lake Wetland Park. Applying the proposed design concept of “Retaining-Breaking-Integrating,” an integrated ecosystem composed of forest, pond, farmland, lake, and island was formed. The design team also introduced a high-efficiency wetland purification system which is harmoniously embedded with the local image and resilient to climate changes with low maintenance, facilitating the optimization of the Ardeidae habitats. The long-term monitoring and maintenance would ensure the efficiency of the wetland purification system and spontaneous succession of the plant communities. The design concept, construction process, and performance of the Start-up Area can further offer references to restoration of the other parts of the park.
As an ongoing project, Rejuvenated Prominence aims to explore operative and hydro-topographic strategies for the overburdened layer landscape of Mae Moh Mine in Lampang Province, Thailand. The 135 km2 mine is located inside Mae Moh Basin, the headwater of Wang River. Since 1969, over 500 million tons of lignite have been extracted, while the remaining reserve of 224 million tons will last for the next 29 years. To recover ecosystems and maintain sustainable development of surrounding communities, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand developed post-mining alternatives from 2020 to 2049. As a part of this research, Rejuvenated Prominence focuses on the 32 km2 overburden dump, where rectangular surfaces completely replaced with complex natural terrains, to thoroughly decode the nature’s structure, function and change. Time-based strategies in accordance with the Mine Master Plan deploy hydro-topographic operations combining soil-bioengineering techniques to activate topographic agents and reclaim the land. Re-engineered geomorphic structures would be initiated to moderate rapid runoff, mitigate mass wasting, disperse soil moisture and replenish the topsoil. This dump would be transformed into an operative landscape with complex hydro-topographic networks and reconnected as a part of the projected headwater landscape over time—to realize the resilience of Mae Moh Basin.
Located on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea in Ghana, West Africa, the city of Winneba boasts one of the important ecological wetlands inscribed on the list of Ramsar Sites. However, Winneba faces daunting environmental, economic and social challenges—e.g. water sanitation crisis, infrastructure deficiency, environmental degradation, gender inequality, and social conflicts—interacting with each other to create a vicious cycle. Based on a collaborative workshop, a “crowd-sourcing” decisionmaking process, on-site fieldworks, and an Interactive Web Map, the project team develops in-depth study of the social context and traditional customs of Winneba. A water sanitation system, also as a network of public spaces that facilitates ecological and social improvement, is proposed. It includes drainage systems, rain gardens, water kiosks, orchards, public biogas toilets, and organic waste collection stations. Combining a three-phase implementation, i.e. establish the concept of public space, create a site through collaborative work, and connect communities, the project team introduces a bottom-up incentive system that encourages local community residents to collaborate and participate in constructing and maintaining the public space system for their communities, so as to improve the wellbeing of the communities and the city. Not just proving a design strategy for a kind of public space or a plan for a network of urban green space system, this project sets an exemplar to long-term sustainable management of water sanitation system through self-government of residents and communities in developing countries.