Pilot resilience projects in Zhuhai, China
21 June 2019Under the request of Zhuhai Housing and Urban Planning Development, World Waternet supported with the revision of the overall guideline for urban planning and city development in Zhuhai, one of the European-China Eco-Cities Link (EC-Link) cities. EC-Link aims to assist cities in China in implementing energy and resource-efficient measures by sharing experiences in sustainable urbanisation with cities in Europe. Strategies for the sustainable development and growth of Zhuhai must integrate adaptation planning in order to reduce vulnerabilities to expected and unexpected impacts of climate change.
With a coastline stretching 690km and subject to tropical hurricanes during summer, Zhuhai is exposed to high risks of extreme weather conditions, including typhoons, heavy rainstorms and floods. Our activities help the city of Zhuhai to look at climate resilience in an integrated way, and to apply the principles and recommendations in pilot projects.
Together with Palmbout Urban Landscapes we collaboratively wrote a 'consulting report for guidelines, principles and process for a resilient Zhuhai' that showcases the Dutch approach and shares new findings in the form of strategies and case studies. The report was written based on the findings gathered during three missions in 2018 and 2019.
Figure 1: Example of relevant landscape typologies for Zhuhai
As a next step, three pilot projects in different areas of Zhuhai have been designed to help Zhuhai better understand the challenges it faces in urban resilience development, review its ability to face them and unite its people, projects and priorities:
- Qianhuan area (resilient design for green belt park and surroundings)
- Old city centre (public engagement/participation for neighborhood resilient design)
- Hengqing & Jinwan coast areas (identification of opportunities for levee & water network planning)
During our last visit in May 2019 we visited the Hengqing and Jinwan coast together with the Zhuhai Water Authorities in order to get an overview of the area and its seawalls/levees.
Figure 2: Levee visit in at the Hengqing & Jinwan coast area in southern parts of Zhuhai.
For pilot project two, we apply the Amsterdam Rainproof approach: the strength of the program is the strong network of different organizations and active participation of local citizens.
At neighborhood level, four locations in Xiangzhou district have been selected for consultation with local residents and several meetings/workshops/seminars were held, encouraging public participation to realize the resilient city concept. Together with local residents, we discussed and analyzed problems and needs of the area’s and translated them into designs.
Figures 3 and 4: site visits with local residents in Xiangzhou district, the old city center of Zhuhai.