An Analysis of the Relationship between Spatial Patterns of Water Quality and Urban Development in Shanghai, China

Recent urban development in Shanghai, the largest city in China, and its impact on the water environment are examined in this study. The area of built-up surface was obtained from the classification of the Landsat 7 ETM+ images of the year 2000 for Shanghai. The proportion of built-up surface and population density were extracted from buffer zones with radii ranging from 100 to 2000 m, and used in regression analysis against various water quality parameters at 44 water quality monitoring stations across metropolitan Shanghai. Results suggest that in most cases, the pattern of urban land use as represented by the built-up surface was a stronger predictor than population density in explaining spatial patterns of water quality parameters in Shanghai. The best models of most water quality parameters were found for buffer zones of 2000 m radius rather than for smaller buffers, indicating the regional nature of the factors that influence water quality in the study area. Evidence suggests that strong associations between land use, population density, and water quality result from the contribution of untreated domestic wastewater and non-point pollution sources to waterways in Shanghai. Such relationships should remain strong in the near future until measures to increase the capacity of wastewater treatment and control of non-point pollution sources are fully implemented

The inhabited environment, infrastructure development and advanced urbanization in China's Yangtze River Delta Region

This paper analyzes the relationship among the inhabited environment, infrastructure development and environmental impacts in China's heavily urbanized Yangtze River Delta region. Using primary human environment data for the period 2006-2014, we examine factors affecting the inhabited environment and infrastructure development: urban population, GDP, built-up area, energy consumption, waste emission, transportation, real estate and urban greenery. Then we empirically investigate the impact of advanced urbanization with consideration of cities' differences. Results from this study show that the growth rate of the inhabited environment and infrastructure development is strongly influenced by regional development structure, functional orientations, traffic network and urban size and form. The effect of advanced urbanization is more significant in large and mid-size cities than huge and mega cities. Energy consumption, waste emission and real estate in large and mid-size cities developed at an unprecedented rate with the rapid increase of economy. However, urban development of huge and mega cities gradually tended to be saturated. The transition development in these cities improved the inhabited environment and ecological protection instead of the urban construction simply. To maintain a sustainable advanced urbanization process, policy implications included urban sprawl control polices, ecological development mechanisms and reforming the economic structure for huge and mega cities, and construct major cross-regional infrastructure, enhance the carrying capacity and improvement of energy efficiency and structure for large and mid-size cities

Application of the Complex Network in the PM2.5 Analysis of Air Pollution in Regions

The complex network was used to investigate PM2.5 of the air pollution. The relevant data of PM2.5 were analyzed with correlation and the complex network in regions in china was established. Through the study of the degree, community structure and motif, the results showed that the main polluted cities in China could be effectively analyzed by this method, and the air polluted cities having cluster phenomena needed to be treated as a whole, which was consistent with real conditions. Because of the fluidity of the air, this research provides guidance for analyzing the agglomeration of polluted cities

Growth, Foreign Direct Investment and the Environment: Evidence from Chinese Cities

In this paper we investigate the relationship between economic growth and industrial pollution emissions in China using data for 112 major cities between 2001 and 2004. Using disaggregated data we separate FDI inflows from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan from those of other foreign economies. We examine four industrial water pollution indicators (wastewater, chemical oxygen demand, hexavalent chromium compounds, and petroleum-like matter) and four industrial air pollution indicators (waste gas, sulphur dioxide, soot and dust). Our results suggest that most air and water emissions rise with increases in economic growth at current income levels. The share of total output produced by firms from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan has a positive effect on emissions although this effect is only significant for three industrial water pollution emissions. The share of total output produced by firms from other foreign economies can be beneficial, detrimental or neutral, depending on the pollutants considered. --FDI,economic growth,pollution,cities

Singapore, a Model for (Sustainable?) Urban Development in China

In order to face the challenge of sustainable urban development on its own territory, China has chosen Singapore as its model and privileged partner. By analysing more than 20 years of cooperation, the aim of this article is to study what sort of vision and model for development China is pursuing, how the “Singaporean model” is imported and incorporated by Chinese stakeholders, and in what ways it is transforming the specificities in planning, building, and organising the country’s cities. Our analysis covers two Sino-Singaporean urban operations that are currently leading the way in China: the Suzhou Industrial Park and the Tianjin eco-city. The incorporation of the Singaporean model into these two operations shows that the latter offers an effective way of linking economic development with urban production, and of enabling the building of orderly cities with good environmental standards. However, these advances have only been made possible by the capacity to take political and financial initiatives that are still exceptional in the country as a whole, and until now do not appear to be easily extendable to other Chinese cities. Moreover, the Sino-Singaporean view of urban development based on productivity and concentrating on supply, infrastructure, and technology encounters major limitations in terms of environmental sobriety and the cities’ social integration

Spatial assessment and management of regional ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Delta Region

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) metropolitan region is one of the most rapidly urbanized regions in China and has experienced a remarkable period of population growth (at an annual growth rate of 3.0%), and urbanization (at an annual growth rate of 9.2%). Rapid urbanization has dramatically changed land use/land cover patterns and ecosystems in the region, causing widespread environmental problems such as habitat fragmentation, aggravation of environmental pollution, decline in biodiversity and ecosystem degredation. These problems have restricted the sustainable development of socio-economic system of the Yangtze River Delta Region. Facing the challenges, the Yangtze River Delta Region is carrying out the practice of regional integration planning and cooperation in environmental governance, which urgently needs the guidance of relevant theories and methods. Some of the key environmental policy pilots have been carried on in this region, such as the Ecological Red Line Policy (Bai et al, 2016; Lü et al, 2013). This policy has one of the main objectives of protecting important eco-function areas i.e. ecosystem service hot spots, to deliver services such as water storage, clean drinking water, and carbon sequestration, and to maintain ecological safety to support economic and social development, which an important policy orientation of ecosystem services approach.Ecosystem services are the contributions of ecosystem structure and function to human well-being, connecting natural and socio-economic systems. The ecosystem services approach is considered to be one of the important decision support tools for guiding and formulating environmental policies. Based on the theories and methods of ecosystem services, combined with local expert knowledge, remote sensing and GIS technologies, this dissertation aims is mainly to develop a comprehensive framework of ecosystem services assessment and decision support for rapid urbanization regions.Based on this framework, the spatial characteristics, supply-demand relationship and flow direction of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Delta Region are analysed and evaluated. Main results of this thesis are as follows:(1) According to the characteristics of the regional ecosystems of the Yangtze River Delta Region, combined with local expert knowledge, the Burkhard’s scoring and assessment method of ecosystem services was improved, and the score matrix between twelve ecosystem types and twenty-three ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Delta Region was established.(2) Based on DPSIR model, the characteristics of the social-ecological complex ecosystem and change of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Delta Region were analysed. The main ecological and environmental problems were identified. Causes and main driving forces of decline in ecosystem services were revealed in the region.(3) Based on ARCGIS platform, the status quo of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Delta region was analysed and evaluated. The spatial differentiation characteristics and main impact factors of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Delta region were clarified. The hot spots of total ecosystem services were aggregated in the southwest areas, while the cold spots were distributed in the middle and northeast areas of the region. The hot spots of supporting services and regulating services aggregately distributed in the southwest mountainous areas while hot spots of provisioning services mainly in the northeast plain, and high value of cultural services widespread in the waterbodies and southwest mountainous areas. The spatial heterogeneity is determined by biophysical features and land use types. Based on the assessment, six major ecosystem services functional zones were divided: (I) South Ecological Integrity Conservation Zone, (II) Southwest Mountainous and Hilly Forest Ecological Zone, (III) Northeast Plain Agriculture Ecological Zone, (IV) Middle Aquatic Ecological Conservation Zone, (V) Eastern Coastal Estuaries Ecological Zone, and (VI) Urban Development Area., and the corresponding management strategies on the basis of environmental problems and ecosystem services characteristics in each of the functional zones were put forward.(4) Using regional spatial data in net primary productivity, the quality levels of forest and cropland were graded and the previous scores of ecosystem services in forest and cropland were calibrated. Then, the hot spots and clustering patches of forest and farmland ecosystem services were identified by ARCGIS tools. Finally, the forest ecosystem conservation areas (red line) and cropland ecosystem conservation areas (red line) in the Yangtze River Delta region were delineated.(5) Based on the improved Burkhard’s supply-demand budget of ecosystem services method, the budgets of three regulating services (erosion regulating service, flood regulating service and water purification regulating service) of the sixteen core cities in the region were established, and the characteristics of surplus and deficit of three services of the cities in the region were analysed. Combing the budget with analysis of flow direction of ecosystem services, the potential provisioning cities and the benefiting cities of ecosystem services are identified. On the basis of the results, the potential model of regional inter-city environmental cooperation is proposed.This dissertation not only improves the methods of ecosystem service assessment and decision support in rapidly urbanized regions, but also makes contributions to the guidance in delineation of ecological red line, regional environmental cooperation and sustainable development in the Yangtze River Delta Region

Performance assessment of coupled green-grey-blue systems for Sponge City construction

This is the final version. Available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record. In recent years, Sponge City has gained significant interests as a way of urban water management. The kernel of Sponge City is to develop a coupled green-grey-blue system which consists of green infrastructure at the source, grey infrastructure (i.e. drainage system) at the midway and receiving water bodies as the blue part at the terminal. However, the current approaches for assessing the performance of Sponge City construction are confined to green-grey systems and do not adequately reflect the effectiveness in runoff reduction and the impacts on receiving water bodies. This paper proposes an integrated assessment framework of coupled green-grey-blue systems on compliance of water quantity and quality control targets in Sponge City construction. Rainfall runoff and river system models are coupled to provide quantitative simulation evaluations of a number of indicators of land-based and river quality. A multi-criteria decision-making method, i.e., Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is adopted to rank design alternatives and identify the optimal alternative for Sponge City construction. The effectiveness of this framework is demonstrated in a typical plain river network area of Suzhou, China. The results demonstrate that the performance of Sponge City strategies increases with large scale deployment under smaller rainfall events. In addition, though surface runoff has a dilution effect on the river water quality, the control of surface pollutants can play a significant role in the river water quality improvement. This framework can be applied to Sponge City projects to achieve the enhancement of urban water management.Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE)National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaBeijing Nature Science FoundationMajor Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatmen

Air Quality Research Using Remote Sensing

Air pollution is a worldwide environmental hazard that poses serious consequences not only for human health and the climate but also for agriculture, ecosystems, and cultural heritage, among other factors. According to the WHO, there are 8 million premature deaths every year as a result of exposure to ambient air pollution. In addition, more than 90% of the world’s population live in areas where the air quality is poor, exceeding the recommended limits. On the other hand, air pollution and the climate co-influence one another through complex physicochemical interactions in the atmosphere that alter the Earth’s energy balance and have implications for climate change and the air quality. It is important to measure specific atmospheric parameters and pollutant compound concentrations, monitor their variations, and analyze different scenarios with the aim of assessing the air pollution levels and developing early warning and forecast systems as a means of improving the air quality and safeguarding public health. Such measures can also form part of efforts to achieve a reduction in the number of air pollution casualties and mitigate climate change phenomena. This book contains contributions focusing on remote sensing techniques for evaluating air quality, including the use of in situ data, modeling approaches, and the synthesis of different instrumentations and techniques. The papers published in this book highlight the importance and relevance of air quality studies and the potential of remote sensing, particularly that conducted from Earth observation platforms, to shed light on this topic

A New Park for Shanghai

This article summarizes the urban proposal of the team led by Professor Estanislau Roca, consisting of professors and students of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), for the International Student Urban Design Competition for Shanghai Railway Station presented in 2015 at the Haishang Cultural Ce nter in Shanghai. Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Te chnology (MIT), Tong ji University, Cardiff University, Southeast University of Nanjing and UPC participated in the competition. The UPC team won a second ex aequo prize with MIT. The UPC proposal represents the urban redeve lopment of an extensive area located in the heart of the city of Shanghai, where the creation of a park comprising about 40 hectares was conceived. The park is designed to form a vast new spac e in the city, in an area covered by railroad tracks east of the Shanghai Railway Station, which form a great barrier that divides the Zhabei Dist rict into two disconnected parts. In the framework of the Shanghai Master Plan 2020–2040, the metropolitan scale is reflected at the local level. The proposal re inforces the continuity of green and blue through strategies that connect the new park with other existing open urban spaces and rivers. Furthermore, it enhances ecological continuity and stimulates regeneration. The project contributes to improving problems with air pollution while at the same time making the currently adopted measures more economically sustainable. Conceived from a holistic perspective, the idea is modelled on a harmonious, inclusive, friendly, smart, accessible, sustainable ci ty networked through the state-of-the-art technology that is essential for such comple x urban transformations. What is more, it rigorously pursues economic viability thro ughout each stage of implementation by guaranteeing that each phase finances itself while maintaining the ledger in a positive balance.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version