Mapping China: Urbanisation - 6 Urban Ecology: The Sponge City Programme

The concept of the ‘Sponge City’ was recently a hot topic raised by the central government to address water management challenges in cities. It is an important switch of focus from building new infrastructure in vacant lands to maintaining and improving the current facilities.

The Sponge City concept was warmly embraced by Chinese cities because many of them are facing the challenge of water scarceness and flooding problems at the same time. In order to put the concept forward, a group of cities were chosen as pilots for Sponge City Programmes. These cities include Xiamen, Jinan and Wuhan, which have some of the densest populations in the country.

One of the most important measures of the Sponge City Programme is the development of a permeable urban system including ponds, filtration pools and wetlands. It also calls for permeable paving on roads to allow storm water to soak into the ground. City managers were sent to European cities to learn from the city-building experiences in the West.

The Sponge City Programme is so far the most practical idea towards a well-sustained urban ecology. It is considered an enduring project that will benefit generations of urban populations in China.