Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2019, Vol. 74 ›› Issue (10): 2123-2135.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201910012

• Rural Revitalization and Regional Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Evaluation on ecological effects under the sponge city construction at the Chuanzi River catchment in the Changde city, China

WANG Xiaqing1,2,SUN Siyuan1,YANG Ping1,ZOU Xiaoyan1,YI Qiaomei1,PENG Baofa1,2(),XU Jianwei1   

  1. 1. College of Resources and Environment and Tourism, Hunan University of Arts and Science, Changde 415000, Hunan, China
    2. Hunan Province Cooperative Innovation Center for the Construction & Development of Dongting Lake Ecological Economic Zone, Changde 415000, Hunan, China;
  • Received:2019-01-21 Revised:2019-10-10 Online:2019-10-25 Published:2019-10-29
  • Contact: PENG Baofa E-mail:pengbaofa@163.com
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.41471114);Key Project of Hunan Provincial Social Science Achievement Review Committee(No.XSP17ZDA002);PhD Research Startup Foundation of Hunan University of Arts and Science(No.E07017015)

Abstract:

Sponge city construction (SCC) is regarded as one of the effective ways to solve the urbanization problems in China, such as waterlogging, water pollution, water shortage and heat island. Since 2015, a total of 30 pilot cities had been set up as sponge cities for providing the models of a nationwide SCC in the future. Nevertheless, the studies about the SCC mainly concentrated on its concept, planning and goal in some pilot cities, few are known about the changes of the ecological effects under the SCC. As the first city in China to accept the sponge city concept and put it into practice, the Changde city, Hunan province, with the Chuanzi River catchment as the study area, provides the ideal area to evaluate the ecological effects under the SCC in China due to a longer SCC history over the period of 2004-2019. In this study, the ecological effects under the SCC in this catchment were analyzed based on field investigation and the comparsion of the measured data of hydrology, vegetation, and temperature before and after the SCC. The results showed that the SCC effectively alleviated the waterlogging in the Changde city, but some waterlogging sites still presented at the different areas in the catchment under the rainstorm. Meanwhile, the water quality in the Chuanzi River had been generally improved from bad Ⅴ to Ⅲ grade, but there was periodically deterioration due to the pollutants enrichment in the water during the winter seasons, which were the results from both closed water system and low temperature environment. In addition, the biodiversity in the catchment had significantly increased, but it also showed some existing problems at the same time including single plant species, few plants with environmental purification functions, incomplete ecosystem and poor management. Besides, the SCC had alleviated the heat islands in summer in the Changde city to some extents. As a result, the SCC over the period of 2004-2019 in the Changde city has significantly improved the ecological effects at the Chuanzi River catchment, which provides an important ecological basis for the socio-economic development and the improvement of the living environment in this area, and provides the reference for the reasonable evaluation on the SCC effects in other pilot cities in China.

Key words: Sponge city, waterlogging, heat island, ecological effect, Chuanzi River catchment, Changde city