Designing urban wetland parks in China : towards guidelines for integrating ecological concerns and open space use

Abstract

Urban wetlands can provide important contributions to the city population, including local climate regulation, recreation, and habitat protection. Along these lines, the Chinese Urban Wetland Park (UWP) initiative of the Sponge City Program aims to address urban environmental challenges and enhance living conditions. While the UWP initiative has been in place since 2005, little scientific understanding exists so far regarding currently employed design guidelines and their effectiveness to address concerns of ecology and open space use. The objective of this thesis is to develop a framework of integrated design guidelines for UWPs in China, which combine concerns of ecology and open space use. The thesis focuses on three issues: (1) What are the key characteristics and design challenges of UWPs in different urban contexts? (2) What integrated design guidelines can be proposed that combine concerns of ecology and open space use in UWPs? (3) Which benefits do selected UWP design guidelines yield on concerns of ecology and open space use in practice, exemplified in six Chinese case studies? The research design follows a three-step approach: first, a literature review to identify key design challenges for UWP; second, a development of a framework of design strategies and measures, based on document analyses and a review of 22 illustrative case studies of integrated UWP designs from Germany, the US, and China; third, an in-depth analysis of six Chinese case studies to investigate the benefits of design measures which address concerns of ecology and open space use. Thirteen key design challenges for UWPs in China were identified, such as increasing habitat connectivity, controlling water pollution, and maintaining biodiversity. The developed framework of design strategies includes 17 design strategies and 57 individual design measures. The in-depth case study analysis revealed key benefits of selected design strategies, for example some of the benefits of open space use, including increasing the number of natural features, supporting recreational activities and events and improving access to open space, and some of the ecological benefits of increasing biodiversity and stormwater retention. VI These findings enhance the knowledge of Chinese UWP functioning and design options, but more case study research is needed to test the applicability of our findings. A few recommendations can be made for design practitioners: Existing UWPs should be continuously monitored using a standard evaluation scheme like the one proposed in this research to identify shortcomings and opportunities for management improvement. Future UWP design could benefit from the successful design strategies and measures proposed here, for example connecting biotopes with open space systems to enhance UWPs’ design quality and capacities to provide benefits for both people and nature, simultaneously.