BUILDING CLIMATE RESILIENCE AND WATER SECURITY IN CITIES: LESSONS FROM THE SPONGE CITY OF WUHAN, CHINA

Abstract

Cities are increasingly adopting nature-based solutions – that is, interventions that rely on providing, restoring, protecting and/or sustainably managing natural or modified spaces and ecosystems – as alternatives to conventional urban development. In 2013, China’s national government launched the “Sponge City Programme” in response to its urban water management challenges The programme encouraged cities to adopt green and blue infrastructure (based on natural areas and water elements) rather than grey infrastructure (based on concrete and steel). Wuhan – a pilot “sponge city” – has shown that green and blue infrastructure can be employed both quickly and cost-effectively to increase the resilience of urban areas to a changing climate. Wuhan’s sponge city programme is more than CNY 4 billion (almost US$ 600 million) cheaper than an alternative (i.e. grey infrastructurebased) approach to increasing the city’s resilience to flooding. The case study also shows that the Sponge City Programme generates wider social and environmental benefits, such as reduced carbon emissions, improved public health, enhanced natural cooling and improved biodiversity conservation. The city’s successes were made possible by an implementation framework, put in place by the national government, which incentivised and enabled lower levels of government to adopt sponge city measures. This involved establishing basic laws and regulations relating to sponge infrastructure; outlining compulsory standards and targets that had to be met; providing support in the form of technical guidelines, direct funding and favourable financing instruments; and peer-to-peer learning across cities.