Sponge City Strategies and Practices in Weihai, China

The “sponge city” strategy is China’s version of what is called “Low Impact Development” (LID) as called in the West. It considers a city as an ecosystem to enhance local safety and overall developments. However, its principle is more systematic compared to the 2D concepts of “development” or “infrastructure” in the LID model. Such a systematic philosophy is rooted in China’s ideological background. Weihai, a city on the eastern coastline of Shandong Province, has made innovative contributions to sponge city strategy, such as cultural tourism and region merging to compete for governmental funding. We examine Weihai’s local resources and its outline for sponge city construction, especially its specific contributions to the sponge city strategy in policy and practice.