Location: Haikou, China.

Architect: Turenscape.

The Meishe River in Haikou City, China, has suffered from water pollution for decades due to sewage and non-point source pollution from urban and suburban runoffs. In 2016, the Haikou government commissioned a landscape architect to lead the mission of recovering the mother river. The project includes a major park, the Fengxiang Park, and a linear river corridor that runs through the densely built area, which makes up the major part of the planned and designed green infrastructure. The landscape architect designed the river corridor as a comprehensive ecological infrastructure to solve holistically the problems of flood and pollution, recover habitats for biodiversity, create pleasant recreation opportunities, and make it beautiful. Three strategies were adopted: planning an ecological infrastructure, transforming grey into green, and integrating grey into green and the terraced wetland park. The green sponge was planned to separate the stormwater from the sewage, so as to integrate the river and all its tributaries, wetland, and all built and potential green spaces. The concrete flood walls were removed and replaced with an eco-friendly river bank. The blocked water way is reconnected to the ocean to allow tides to again enter the city; wetlands and shallow shores along the river were reconstructed so that mangroves could rehabilitate them. Interconnected terraces of constructed subsurface flow wetlands are built along the river bank, formerly occupied by a concrete flood wall and garbage dump. The terraces are designed as water cleansing facilities. The project is a great success: the river water has become clean again, fish and birds have returned, mangrove are reestablished, and the water is again the city’s heart. Tens of thousands of visitors are attracted to the new landscape. And to celebrate the recovery of the beauty of its mother river which was only a memory for older residents decades ago, Haikou was honored as one of the 18 International Wetland Cities by the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention in 2018. Tests prove the nature-based solutions showcased in this project are replicable. Globally, over 85% of sewage in urban areas, mainly in developing countries, is untreated, polluting rivers, lakes and oceans, and worsening the water shortage. 75% of the surface water is polluted in China, mainly caused by non-point source pollution source pollution including urban and suburban runoffs. While centralized sewage treatment systems are economically unfeasible for some urban villages and isolated settlements, nature-based solutions can play an important role in remediating water quality and floods, as well as creating public spaces that provide cultural and social services.

Photo credit: Kongjian Yu, Turenscape.