<
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/03/1202252103/china-floods-sponge-cities-climate-change>
'JINHUA, China — In the shade of a willow tree, Li Tao and his buddy dabble
lines in a slow-moving river channel and occasionally pull out a tiny fish.
"It's good to have a place like this for people to relax," says Li, his shirt
off in the midday heat.
This place — called Baisha Creek — has come full circle.
The bank used to be concrete, but several years ago, work began to restore
wetlands here. Rushes now grow in tall stands, and on islands in the river,
weeds thrive on the shallow bank and cicadas buzz in the trees.
Yu Kongjian, the man behind the project, describes a similarly natural scene
that existed here 50 years ago when, as a 10-year-old, he was nearly swept away
by the water.
"It was a huge flood. But I survived. You know why? Because I grabbed the
willows, weeds, the reeds, along the riverbank," he says.
Decades of turbocharged development meant that the riverbank, as well as many
others in China, got paved over to channel the water away from growing cities.
Textbooks say that's the thing to do, according to Yu. But, he adds, it hasn't
worked.
"All these industrialized solution has some failure or has some bad side
effects," he says.
Not only would concrete banks have made it harder for a drowning kid to clamber
to safety, he explains, but flooding has gotten much worse because of "gray
infrastructure."
Almost all of China's medium and large cities are now susceptible to floods.
And Yu says 60% of them experience flooding every year. Extreme weather from
climate change is exacerbating the problem.
So Yu has been evangelizing a solution he calls "sponge cities." That is, urban
landscapes that are softer and purposely designed to absorb more water.
In Yu's words: "You are actually playing tai chi with nature, not boxing with
nature."'
Via
Future Crunch:
https://futurecrunch.com/226-eighth-continent/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
