Reflections and Suggestions on China's Sponge City Construction

This article first introduces the development of China’s urban water system management and the Sponge City construction. Generally speaking, China’s urban water system management has progressively turned into addressing water problems with integrated solutions, with the focus shifting from problem finding towards objective-setting and emphasizing theoretical significance. Meanwhile, the evaluation criterion has adopted more indicators valuing the quality and efficiency of projects’ actual performance, rather than a rough quantitative measurement. Then this article addresses the potential reasons for the public questioning China’s Sponge City construction since the implementation of pilot projects in 2015, such as the misunderstanding of its connotation, public perception of the projects’ actual environmental performance, and construction quality. Only by recognizing the reality and identifying difficulties and primary goals, can the targeted and systematic solutions solving on-site water relevant problems and meeting public needs be proposed. In response, the authors put forward the major difficulties in future Sponge City construction promotion, which include 1) coordinating the Sponge City construction and urban storm water management to facilitate onsite runoff retention and address urban waterlogging problems; 2) establishing a whole-process management system for China’s Sponge City construction projects that involves a series of stages; 3) identifying the accountability and responsibilities of the administration, design, and construction parties; and 4) updating knowledge and technical perception. Furthermore, the authors emphasized the importance of expertise collaboration and talent training to provide professionals with ability in practice, in-depth inter-professional and technical coordination, and active learning. Finally, the authors encouraged the key topics in the future—introduction of new market mechanisms such as storm water billing system, optimization of the current policy mechanism, and institutionalization of Sponge City construction.