Urban Sustainable Development Based on the Framework of Sponge City: 71 Case Studies in China

Abstract

Sponge city is a new urban stormwater management strategy proposed in China, which enables the city to absorb and save stormwater like a sponge, then release stormwater to solve the problems of urban waterlogging and water shortage. However, at present, sponge cities are confronted with such problems as high management cost and low management efficiency, a lack of research on collaborative management between cities and the feasibility of regional cooperation between sponge cities needs to be proved. Therefore, this article puts forward the theory of sponge city regional ecological cooperative management and builds a multivariate cluster analysis model of sponge city and conducts an empirical study on data of 71 Chinese cities. The research results show that under the multi-index linkage system, China’s urban climate and ecological characteristics do have the characteristics of regional agglomeration and the basic conditions of interregional ecological cooperation, which proves the feasibility of the hypothesis of regional cooperation. Therefore, strengthening the ecological cooperation of sponge cities among regional cities is conducive to improving the supply efficiency of ecological environment quality and realizing the sustainable development of cities.

Land suitability assessment for supporting transport planning based on carrying capacity and construction demand

“…It is authoritative, comprehensive, strategic, regional, and restrictive [ 2 ]. The current planning system in China is complex and imperfect, and there have been some problems such as conflicts of various types of planning content, poor linkage of various departments, and complex work processes [ 3 , 4 ], resulting in prominent human-land conflicts, unbalanced development of urban and rural areas, low efficiency of land space development, and insufficient ecological protection, among others [ 5 – 7 ]. The newly proposed national spatial planning integrates the functions of various planning departments and improves the coordination mechanism among various departments.…”

Development of a Heterogeneity Analysis Framework for Collaborative Sponge City Management

“…Such cooperation should include not only the related functional departments, but also the linkage of control objectives and management elements. Moreover, up to date information technologies such as artificial intelligence and internet of things should be integrated with the sponge city construction and management, which will help to improve the overall efficiency of sponge city management [31].…”

Integrating Sponge City Concept and Neural Network into Land Suitability Assessment: Evidence from a Satellite Town of Shenzhen Metropolitan Area

“…Attention should be paid to complicated waterlogging problems on the underlying surface. The diversity in ecological, social, economic, and city development conditions should also be considered when evaluating the land suitability of city sponges [13,15,16]. Studies on land suitability evaluation for sponge cities were divided into two categories according to the evaluation objects.…”

“…By doing so, we can predict disaster risk at all stages of planning and select the land with a low degree of waterlogging disaster for urban construction and fixed asset investment. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore a comprehensive evaluation method for the land suitability of sponge city construction, which not only considers the disaster risk with the background of urban waterlogging but also reflects the integrity of ecological, social, economic, and other factors according to local conditions [15,16]. Accordingly, the planning area of the Shenzhou-Shantou special cooperation zone (SSCZ), with its frequent waterlogging problem, was selected as a case study.…”