Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143

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Environmental Science and Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci

Review

Urban pluvial flooding and stormwater management: A contemporary T

review of China’s challenges and “sponge cities” strategy
⁎
Yong Jianga, , Chris Zevenbergena, Yongchi Mab
a
IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, 2611AX Delft, The Netherlands
b
Department of Public Management, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In recent years, urban pluvial flooding caused by extreme rainfall has increasingly occurred across China. This
Urban pluvial flooding paper reviews the challenges faced by China in addressing urban pluvial flooding and managing urban storm-
China water, with a particular focus on a policy initiative termed sponge cities. The paper first synthetically presents
Stormwater management pluvial flood disasters in urbanized areas, and analyses their causes and formation mechanisms. It then in-
Urban planning
troduces China’s sponge cities initiative and discusses policy implementation in relation to contemporary un-
Governance
derstanding of sustainable urban stormwater management and international experience with innovative prac-
Low impact development
tices. The initiative, while theoretically well grounded and appropriate by its design principles, is shown subject
to diverse implementation challenges, ranging from technological complexity to limited or lack of governance
capacity as reflected in management ideology, knowledge and capacity of learning, participatory and integrated
governance, investment financing, implementation pathway, planning and organization, and project evaluation.
The paper offers some strategies for addressing those challenges, which include: 1) continuous experiment-based
deep learning through pilot and institutionalization of knowledge and information management with city-to-city
peering learning mechanisms, 2) establishment of institutional mechanisms dedicated to participatory, co-
ordinated and integrated governance of the policy initiative, 3) increased government role in creating favorable
conditions for investments, and 4) appropriate planning and an adaptive approach to policy implementation.
The paper concludes that the sponge cities initiative can be an effective approach only if China commits to
appropriate technical, governance, financial, and organizational measures to effectively address the challenges
for policy implementation.

1. Introduction In response to rising pluvial flooding events in urban areas, the

In recent years, urban pluvial flooding caused by extreme rainfall
events has increasingly occurred across China. A classic example fre-
quently cited is the devastating flash flood brought by a cloudburst that
hit Beijing − the capital city of this country − on 21 July 2012 (Qiu,
2012). Similar flood events have also been reported in megacities such
as Shanghai (Du et al., 2015), Wuhan (Liu and Hou, 2016), Shenzhen
(Shi et al., 2007), Tianjin (Liu and Wang, 2016), and Ningbo (Shen,
2016). More recently, in 2016, weeks of torrential rainfall during the
monsoon season led to severe flooding, which submerged 28 provinces,
thousands of counties, and hundreds of cities in both the north and
south of this country (Shepard, 2016). Urban pluvial flooding seems to
become a regular hydrometeorological phenomenon associated conse-
quently and inevitably with heavy rainfalls, and is of increasing concern
due to its potential diverse damages and societal impacts (e.g.,
Zevenbergen et al., 2013).
Chinese government has adopted a series of policies and programs to
expedite and strengthen the development of drainage systems across
cities (e.g., SC, 2013). Most significantly, in 2014, the government
formally announced a national initiative termed sponge cities as a hol-
istic strategy to tackle urban pluvial flooding while improving ecosys-
tems and the environment (MHURD, 2014a,b). By this initiative, the
government hopes to reshape and improve its ongoing urbanization and
development process in a way that explicitly takes into account urban
water cycle.
Currently, the Chinese government has been undertaking pre-
paratory actions for implementing the policy initiative of sponge cities,
including publishing a preliminary technical guideline, setting targets,
and establishing a regulatory framework. Two batches of cities were
selected, 16 in 2015 and 14 in 2016 including Beijing and Shanghai
(Fig. 1), as pilots for carrying out the initiative. Given its large scale and
foreseeable impact, the sponge cities initiative (SCI) is of strong

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: y.jiang@unesco-ihe.org (Y. Jiang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.11.016
Received 13 June 2017; Received in revised form 28 September 2017; Accepted 26 November 2017
Available online 06 December 2017
1462-9011/ © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
Y. Jiang et al.
Fig. 1. Spatial distribution of selected pilot cities for sponge city development as compared to annual rainfall and water disaster frequency in China (adopted from Sang and Yang, 2016).
interest. To what extent does this initiative represent a reliable solution
for alleviating increasingly severe urban pluvial flooding faced by
Chinese cities? What are the practical challenges ahead for policy im-
plementation that require serious attention by the government? Yet,
there is a lack of literature deliberating on the initiative from a prac-
tical, management perspective despite its policy relevance and im-
portance.
[Fig. 1]
This paper aims to review from a practical perspective the chal-
lenges faced by China in managing urban stormwater and pluvial
flooding, particularly in promoting and implementing the SCI. For this
purpose, the paper adopts an approach examining the policy initiative
right through the lens of recent developments in innovative urban
stormwater management and international practices and experiences.
This particular focus of and method for developing the review are
mainly due to the practical nature of the initiative, the current policy
need, and the aim of the paper. As the initiative is shaped around the
modern understanding of innovative stormwater management and as
there is much experience accumulated already across western devel-
oped countries in experimenting with and implementing relevant
management concepts, this paper is motivated to develop insights into
the practical aspect of China’s initiative and to identify areas and po-
tential for further improvement and upscaling based on synthesis of
current knowledge and experience.
This paper is justified by: 1) the close relevance of the policy on a
pervasive global water issue in the biggest developing country under
climate change, 2) the potential huge societal, economic and environ-
mental impact of the policy initiative, 3) the fundamental, transfor-
mative change of China’s water management from the traditional sector
based, engineering oriented paradigm to a nature-based, holistic ap-
proach marked by the initiative, and 4) the relevance and the practical
and theoretical value of China’s experience to global sustainable urban
development. A clear understanding of the SCI to address urban pluvial
flooding and implementation challenges has strong potential to feed
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Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143
into and influence China’s current urban development toward water
resilience and security under climate change. It also offers experience
and implications on practice in a development setting allowing learning
and knowledge co-production in global experimentation and effort to
pursue sustainable and climate-proof urban development (e.g., Ahem,
2011; Farrelly and Brown, 2011; Bulkeley and Broto, 2013; McCormick
et al., 2013; Valkering et al., 2013; Anguelovski et al., 2014).
This paper is organized as follow. The next section elaborates on
China’s urban pluvial flood disasters and the strategy of SCI.
Specifically, in this section, the paper first characterizes urban pluvial
flood disasters by significance and socio-economic impact, and analyses
their cause. The paper then describes China’s initiative, including its
policy context, guiding principles and development, and the current
status of policy implementation. Section 3 discusses the implementation
challenges of the policy identified based on a review of the state of the
art of innovative stormwater management, shedding some light on
areas for further improvement. Section 4 offers strategies and measures
for addressing those policy implementation challenges. Section 5 con-
cludes the paper.
2. China’s urban pluvial flood disaster and sponge cities initiative
2.1. Urban pluvial flood disaster
China is a country with severe water problems, including water
scarcity (Jiang, 2009), flooding (Du et al., 2016; Duan et al., 2016), and
water pollution (Jiang, 2009, 2015), which all have been intensifying in
urban areas threatening socio-economic development (Shi et al., 2005;
Jiang, 2015). In recent years, urban pluvial flooding has become even
more frequent, pervasive and severe (Liu and Xia, 2016). It was found
that 641out of 654 Chinese cities are exposed to frequent floods
(TFUFPSI, 2014). A survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and
Urban Rural Development (MHURD) showed that over the period
2008–2010, 62% of 351 cities surveyed suffered urban pluvial flooding,
Y. Jiang et al.
Fig. 2. Economic loss caused by urban flooding in China in 2013 (adapted from Xu, 2015).
and 39% experienced flooding for more than three times (Lv and Zhao,
2013). Since 2008, the number of Chinese cities affected by floods has
more than doubled (Economist, 2015), and at least 130 cities have
experienced flooding nearly every year (Lv and Zhao, 2013).
Urban pluvial flooding damaged properties and interrupted eco-
nomic activities with substantial loss and societal impacts in China,
attracting wide media attention (Economist, 2015; Chen, 2016;
Shepard, 2016). For example, the 2012 flash flood in Beijing caused the
evacuation of nearly 60,000 people, killed at least 77 people, and af-
fected more than 1.6 million people across the city, with direct eco-
nomic losses estimated at around US$ 1.6 billion (Qiu, 2012). Ranked
the worst flooding in nearly 20 years, the massive floods across both the
South and North of China in the summer of 2016 impacted 60 million
people, forced over half million evacuated, and killed 300 people,
costing China at least US$44.7 billion (Shepard, 2016). Since 2010,
rain-induced flood disasters have led to a damage loss of more than US$
15 billion each year (Xu et al., 2016).1 Fig. 2 presents the economic loss
caused by urban pluvial flooding in Chinese cities in 2013. With cities
responsible for more than 80% of China’s GDP and hosting more than
50% of the total population (NDRC, 2016), urban pluvial flooding by its
devastating socio-economic impacts is increasingly becoming a serious
concern for China's development (NDRC, 2016).
2.2. Cause of urban pluvial flood disasters
The rising severe pluvial flood disasters across Chinese cities can be
attributed to many factors among which climate change, extensive and
1
In this paper, the Chinese currency (or yuan) was converted to U.S. dollar using the
exchange rate of 1 Chinese yuan = 0.15 U.S. dollar.
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Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143
rapid urbanization, and unsustainable urban development combined
with management failure are considered the main ones.
2.2.1. Climate change
Climate change is a driving factor that increases flood hazards
across China (Duan et al., 2016). While the role of global warming in
unusually large rainfall events in countries like China has been debated,
Donat et al. (2016) shows that climate change is driving a significant
and robust overall increase in rainfall extremes across most global re-
gions including China. Supporting evidence shows that the number of
days of heavy precipitation has increased significantly (You et al.,
2011). More extreme rainfall events, particularly high intensity short
duration rainfall, have been observed in recent years (Ding et al., 2006;
Liu and Xia, 2016). Extreme precipitation has been found playing a
dominant role in the year-to-year variability of China’s total pre-
cipitation, contributing approximately one third of the total precipita-
tion (Sun, 2012). Changes in the upper extremes of the distributions of
extreme precipitation indices, which very often cause serious weather
and climate risks, have occurred in a broader area of China and at a
much higher rate than previously believed (Fan and Chen, 2016). The
increase in precipitation extremes in terms of both frequency and
magnitude hydrologically boosts flood hazards, representing a chan-
ging biophysical condition for China’s urban development.
2.2.2. Urbanization
Urbanization, a socio-economic process characterizing China’s de-
velopment in recent decades, essentially increases societal exposure to
rising flood hazards induced by climate change. China has been ex-
periencing large-scale and rapid urban expansion particularly since the
early 1990s (e.g., He et al., 2014; Kuang et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2016). In
the period 1990–2015, China’s urban population increased from
Y. Jiang et al.
approximately 302 million to 771 million, or from 26.4% to 56.1% of
China’s total population, implying an average annual growth rate of
about 6.2%; over the same period, China’s urbanized area expanded
extensively from 1.3 × 104 km2 to 5.2 × 104 km2, with an average
annual growth rate of 12% that was nearly twice the average annual
growth rate of population (NBSC, 2016). Associated with the urbani-
zation process, Chinese cities function increasingly as the hub for eco-
nomic growth with highly concentrated population and capital while
simultaneously being exposed to rising flood hazards (Han and
Kasperson, 2011). Rapid and large-scale urbanization combined with
climate change, thus, jointly boosts the risk of flood disasters (e.g., Li
et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2015; Duan et al., 2016), dictating a holistic
approach to urban development and management with enhanced so-
cietal robustness and resilience. Poor governance and planning, how-
ever, is often the case, responsible for rising urban pluvial flood dis-
asters.
2.2.3. Urban development practice and pattern
China’s urban development, however, has historically been shaped
within a political culture dominated by development and economic
growth in the past, with less attention paid to ecosystem and environ-
mental protection at system level integrated with development (Shi
et al., 2005; Cao et al., 2014; Su et al., 2014). Associated with urba-
nization, landscapes in developed areas have dramatically changed,
characteristic of extensive, sprawling urban extension and inefficient
land conversion to imperious concrete surfaces (Ma et al., 2014; Chen
et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2016). Indeed, the impervious surface area across
Chinese cities has been steadily increasing at an annual rate of 6.5%
(Ma et al., 2014), accompanied by continuous loss of aquatic ecosys-
tems such as lakes and wetlands, along with fragmentation of natural
and ancient artificial water systems across cities despite their strategic
importance and functional role in sustaining urban water resilience (Du
et al., 2010; Xu et al., 2011; Jiang et al., 2012; Zhang et al., 2015). As a
consequence, such development practices and patterns severely reduce
the capacity of local landscapes to absorb, store, infiltrate, and detain
rainwater and to purify polluted runoff water, exacerbating urban
runoff as well as water and soil pollution and the frequency and in-
tensity of flooding (Shi et al., 2005, 2007;Xu et al., 2010; Qin et al.,
2013; NDRC, 2016; Zheng et al., 2016) (See Fig. 3). Previous research
estimated that for a watershed of 1 km2, the peak flow of surface runoff
could rise by 1.5 to 6 times when the watershed became urbanized
(Hao, 2005).
2.2.4. Urban stormwater management
China’s urban drainage systems have long failed to keep pace with
population growth and urban expansion. In particular, urban
Fig. 3. Hydrological effect of urbanization on river flow across landscapes (adopted from
Duan et al., 2016).
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Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143
stormwater management facilities lags behind infrastructure develop-
ment, drainage pipe networks are insufficient or poorly maintained,
and design standards of stormwater are outdated, inconsistent with
both urban population growth and a changing climate. In addition, the
large uncertainties associated with the prediction of extreme rainfall
and urbanization represent another huge challenge for drainage and
stormwater management in urbanized areas (e.g., Notaro et al., 2015).
Unsustainable urban development on one hand exacerbates the impact
of climate change and urbanization, and on the other hand is not able to
meet the rising challenges induced by the changing development si-
tuations of climate change and urbanization (Han and Kasperson,
2011), increasing China’s vulnerability to urban pluvial flooding. As a
result, pluvial flood disasters become more frequent and severe as ob-
served in recent years across Chinese cities (Cheng, 2013; NDRC, 2016).
2.3. The sponge cities initiative
The policy initiative of sponge cities arises as part of China’s en-
deavor to pursue ecological civilization during its fast socio-economic
development (Liu et al., 2014). In particular, for urban development,
China in its recent national urbanization plan articulated a transition
towards sustainability and quality improvement over the period
2014–2020 (MHURD, 2014b). With pluvial flood disasters emerging as
a serious problem in addition to existing water shortage and pollution
encountered by urbanization, enhancing the water sensitivity and re-
silience of cities is considered nationally a major component of ecolo-
gical civilization and an important task for future urban development
(MHURD, 2014b).
Another policy context partially motivating the SCI is related to the
strategic role played by water in China’s urbanization and associated
socio-economic development. Rather than land or food, water has been
recognized as the most critical resource of China (Brown, 2001).
Fueling and catalyzing economic growth, the urbanization process as
part of the modern development in China is dependent on, while
heavily and adversely impacted, available water resources (Hubacek
and Sun, 2007; Bao and Fang, 2012). About 45% and 17% of Chinese
cities are subject to insufficient water supply and severe water shortage,
respectively, and 30 out of 32 metropolitan areas with more than 1
million people struggle to meet water demands (Jiang, 2009). Ir-
onically, urban areas are also the hotspot for aquatic ecosystem de-
gradation and flood disasters attributable to urban runoff (e.g. Novotny,
1999; Walsh et al., 2012; Jia et al., 2013). It is within this context that
the concept of sponge cities is introduced to promote a paradigm shift
in urban drainage and stormwater management towards rainwater re-
tention and sustainable use integrated with urban development, a
holistic approach that accommodates urbanization, promotes sustain-
able development, and simultaneously addresses the water and en-
vironmental challenges.
Table 1 characterizes the SCI as outlined by the national technical
guidance for city development (see MHURD, 2014b). Essentially, the
initiative is a planning and design strategy for urban development that
promotes rainwater systems integrated with strategic ecosystem con-
servation and restoration or remediation. It aims to preserve or restore
during urbanization the sponge-like capacity of natural landscapes to
absorb and store rainwater, thereby alleviating flooding risk, reducing
runoff pollution, and augmenting water supply for different uses in-
cluding the use for the environment (SC, 2013, 2015). The im-
plementation of the initiative is organized through top-down adminis-
tration of development planning composed of socio-economic
development planning, land use planning, and urban-rural planning,
with the governments at different administrative levels being the main
unit responsible for organizing and coordinating policy implementation
among relevant government departments.
Conceptually, the initiative is analogous to a number of innovative
approaches to urban stormwater management adopted across devel-
oped countries such as low-impact development in the U.S., sustainable
Y. Jiang et al.
Table 1
Features of China’s sponge cities initiative for water resilient urban development.
Main attributes Characteristics
Goal Cities equipped with sponge-like capability that allows absorbing, storing, infiltrating, purifying, and, when needed, releasing rainwater.
Approach 1) Natural ecosystems conservation; 2) degraded ecosystems restoration and remediation; and 3) low-impact development
Organization and implementation Top-down administration through development planning, with city governments as the main administrative unit at different levels
responsible for low impact development rainwater system construction, including planning and coordinating the work of relevant
government units such as urban planning, urban drainage, roads and transportation, and landscapes, and materializing implementation
requirements in: 1) urban master plans and sector development plans, 2) project development, renovation and expansion, and 3)
administrative duties of relevant government units.
urban drainage systems in the U.K., and water sensitive cities in
Australia (see Fletcher et al., 2015 for an excellent review). As a matter
of fact, the technical guidance for the initiative draws largely from the
theory and design practice of low impact development while attempting
to account for China’s own development feature. One guiding principle
of low impact development (and other innovative approaches as well)
followed by the initiative is to not only reduce urban runoff at the
source by decentralized management measures (such as ponds and
storage tanks) but also rely jointly on both nature-based (e.g., bios-
wales) and engineering (e.g., drainage pipes) solutions to detain and
temporally store stormwater, maintaining the natural hydrological
process of landscapes in urban development (MHURD, 2014a, 2014b).
Notably, the initiative prioritizes ecosystem conservation and re-
storation in urbanization, explicitly considering the water and en-
vironmental impact of development while meeting the rising demand
for resources. It reflects the modern understanding of tackling urban
water issues in a holistic, sustainable way, consistent with integrated
urban water management (Mitchell, 2006; Mostafavi and Doherty,
2010; Wong et al., 2013; Mottaghi et al., 2016). This systematic ap-
proach, at least by design, has the potential to generate multiple ben-
efits simultaneously across scale and scope, including mitigating floods,
reducing runoff pollution load, harvesting rainwater, maintaining en-
vironmental amenity, and improving livability, which address the in-
terrelated water and environmental challenges faced by Chinese cities.
Given that climate change and urbanization are largely being irrever-
sible over the coming decades and that extending and retrofitting the
existing urban drainage system is a costly long-run effort, the SCI ap-
pears to be a cost-effective alternative in building and improving water
resilience and promoting sustainable urban development across China.2
2.4. Current status of policy implementation
Table 2 summarizes the current status in implementing the SCI
across selected pilot cities. For the first batch of 16 pilot cities selected
in 2015, some progress has been made in terms of the number of pro-
jects completed, areas constructed, and financial investment made by
the end of 2016. Specifically, 1789 out of 2853 planned projects (or
62.7%) were initiated over an area of 313.78 km2 (or 62.7% of total
planned construction area), among which 725 projects encompassing
150.67 km2 were accomplished. Overall, US$ 7 billion was invested,
accounting for 48.7% of total planned investment. In contrast, the
second batch of 14 pilot cities selected in 2016 just started to imple-
ment the initiative, with a limited number (or 11.5%) of projects in-
itiated, small (or 17.6%) areas under construction, and little (or 8.6%)
investment made, compared to their planned targets.
As demonstrated by Table 2, the progress of implementation varies
greatly across pilot cities. Among the first batch of pilot cities, Wuhan
had 81.2% of planned projects under construction, which covered
2
The cost-effectiveness of the sponge cities approach is based on the fact that it can
generate multiple benefits such as flood mitigation, water supply, and ecosystem con-
servation in addition to drainage while the conventional engineering-based approach for
stormwater is relatively more expensive and designed and built for the single purpose of
drainage only.
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Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143
64.4% of planned construction area, while Qianan had only 11.6% of
planned projects started and 18.6% of planned area under construction.
Although the majority of the pilot cities in the second batch just started
implementing the initiative, Tianjin stood out as exception, with 36.4%
of planned projects or 81.2% of planned area is under construction.
While Shenzhen had as high as 47.3% of planned projects under con-
struction, but those projects only accounted for 7.6% of planned con-
struction area.
Given the current status of policy implementation, key questions
arise concerning the effectiveness of those sponge cities projects in
contributing to the achievement of their policy goal and the spatial
heterogeneity in policy implementation across cities. To answer these
questions requires data on the hydrological effect of those projects, both
alone and jointly at differential spatial scale, as well as their techno-
logical and economic performance interacting with the biophysical and
socio-economic conditions of pilot cities. With projects largely under
construction and pilot implementation ongoing, monitoring and data
collection at the project level is, therefore, critically important for ex
post evaluation of the effectiveness of the SCI policy in the future.
3. Discussion on policy implementation challenges
As an innovative water management concept introduced in a context
dominated by sector-based engineering or technology-oriented thinking
(Jiang, 2015), the SCI of course is subject to many implementation chal-
lenges, which require due attention by decision-makers.
3.1. Complexity of urban stormwater management
One main challenge for implementing the initiative may come from
the complexity of urban stormwater management itself, with increasing
sophistication and evolving scientific understanding. Over recent dec-
ades, urban stormwater management has received much attention
across the world, as evidenced by an exponential growth in the use of
urban drainage terminology in the literature (Fletcher et al., 2015),
partially in response to societal needs for improved stormwater man-
agement under changing development conditions such as climate
change and urbanization (Burns et al., 2012; Fletcher et al., 2013).
Urban stormwater management has also been evolving over time,
characterized by increasing sophistication, multi-dimensions, and in-
tegrated nature, with its functional goal expanding from conventional
drainage for flood mitigation only to covering a wide range of aspects
such as recreation and amenity, aquatic ecology, and water resource
use (Fig. 4). The expanded functional requirements each stands alone as
a challenging task, not even mentioning their integration and the added
complication by the uncertainties in climate change predictions inter-
acted with spatial heterogeneity and governance regime. The changing
philosophy of management for urban stormwater clearly implies in-
creased complexity.
Corresponding to the expanded requirements for managing urban
stormwater, implementing the SCI requires understanding and ac-
counting for not only urban hydrology (Fletcher et al., 2013), including
landscape imperviousness and hydrological impact (Jacobson, 2011)
and stormwater runoff dynamics (Pyke et al., 2011), but also available
Y. Jiang et al. Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143

Table 2
Progress in implementing sponge city construction across selected pilot cities of the first batch.
Data source: MHURD (2017).

Pilot city Projects Construction area, km2 Investment, US$ billion

Planned (%) Completed (%) Under construction (%) Planned (%) Completed (%) Under construction (%) Planned (%) Completed (%)

The first batch of selected 16 pilot cities

Total 2853 725 1098 454.90 150.67 163.11 144.55 70.36
(100) (25.4) (38.5) (100) (33.1) (35.9) (100) (48.7)
Qianan 189 10 22 21.50 2.00 4.00 5.10 1.38
(100) (5.3) (11.6) (100) (9.3) (18.6) (100) (27.1)
Baicheng 308 133 50 22.00 14.00 2.00 6.53 3.00
(100) (43.2) (16.2) (100) (63.6) (9.1) (100) (46.0)
Zhenjiang 155 76 39 22.00 10.10 9.50 6.09 3.20
(100) (49.0) (25.2) (100) (45.9) (43.2) (100) (52.5)
Jiaxin 116 36 55 18.44 3.31 11.79 7.66 2.55
(100) (31.0) (47.4) (100) (18.0) (63.9) (100) (33.3)
Chizhou 117 45 42 18.50 9.70 8.36 7.86 4.02
(100) (38.5) (35.9) (100) (52.4) (45.2) (100) (51.2)
Xiamen 240 39 58 35.40 4.09 6.78 14.14 3.30
(100) (16.3) (24.2) (100) (11.6) (19.2) (100) (23.3)
Pinxiang 159 17 42 32.98 2.58 20.88 9.45 4.72
(100) (10.7) (26.4) (100) (7.8) (63.3) (100) (50.0)
Jinan 43 13 30 39.01 29.98 6.11 11.75 7.81
(100) (30.2) (69.8) (100) (76.9) (15.7) (100) (66.5)
Hebi 317 30 216 29.80 4.00 11.80 4.93 2.52
(100) (9.5) (68.1) (100) (13.4) (39.6) (100) (51.1)
Wuhan 293 38 238 38.50 12.62 24.78 20.04 7.54
(100) (13.0) (81.2) (100) (32.8) (64.4) (100) (37.6)
Changde 148 68 48 36.10 7.10 8.07 11.72 7.50
(100) (45.9) (32.4) (100) (19.7) (22.4) (100) (63.9)
Nanning 203 80 54 54.60 25.02 14.16 13.16 11.90
(100) (39.4) (26.6) (100) (45.8) (25.9) (100) (90.4)
Chongqin 75 19 29 18.67 5.00 10.00 6.33 3.36
(100) (25.3) (38.7) (100) (26.8) (53.6) (100) (53.1)
Suining 346 98 123 25.80 6.45 9.86 8.74 3.62
(100) (28.3) (35.5) (100) (25.0) (38.2) (100) (41.4)
Guianxinqu 67 7 25 19.10 2.48 9.55 7.01 2.48
(100) (10.4) (37.3) (100) (13.0) (50.0) (100) (35.4)
Xixianxinqu 77 16 27 22.50 12.24 5.47 4.06 1.47
(100) (20.8) (35.1) (100) (54.4) (24.3) (100) (36.3)
The second batch of selected 14 cities
Total 2750 70 317 467.75 23.18 82.30 131.05 11.26
(100) (2.5) (11.5) (100) (5.0) (17.6) (100) (8.6)
Beijing 55 8 7 19.36 0.32 2.74 8.57 0.92
(100) (14.5) (12.7) (100) (1.7) (14.2) (100) (10.7)
Tianjin 118 0 43 39.50 0 32.88 11.42 1.80
(100) (0.0) (36.4) (100) (0.0) (83.2) (100) (15.8)
Dalian 80 0 11 21.80 0 1.60 6.21 0.33
(100) (0.0) (13.8) (100) (0.0) (7.3) (100) (5.4)
Shanghai 34 0 6 79.00 1.46 2.94 12.23 1.13
(100) (0.0) (17.6) (100) (1.8) (3.7) (100) (9.2)
Ningbo 153 6 36 30.95 3.32 5.79 9.06 0.60
(100) (3.9) (23.5) (100) (10.7) (18.7) (100) (6.6)
Fuzhou 267 3 20 56.95 0.37 9.39 11.70 0.75
(100) (1.1) (7.5) (100) (0.6) (16.5) (100) (6.4)
Qingdao 258 1 29 25.24 0.07 2.30 7.32 0.11
(100) (0.4) (11.2) (100) (0.3) (9.1) (100) (1.5)
Zhuhai 451 3 40 51.90 10.60 8.72 15.80 0.19
(100) (0.7) (8.9) (100) (20.4) (16.8) (100) (1.2)
Shenzhen 55 3 23 24.65 1.33 1.87 6.14 1.11
(100) (5.5) (41.8) (100) (5.4) (7.6) (100) (18.1)
Sanya 154 12 9 20.30 0.19 1.17 8.99 1.80
(100) (7.8) (5.8) (100) (0.9) (5.8) (100) (20.0)
Yuxi 289 16 41 20.90 4.00 1.76 12.57 1.67
(100) (5.5) (14.2) (100) (19.1) (8.4) (100) (13.3)
Qingyang 256 0 7 29.60 0 2.34 7.10 0.31
(100) (0.0) (2.7) (100) (0.0) (7.9) (100) (4.3)
Xining 252 18 8 21.60 1.53 6.27 8.19 0.29
(100) (7.1) (3.2) (100) (7.1) (29.0) (100) (3.6)
Guyuan 328 0 37 26.00 0 2.52 5.75 0.19
(100) (0.0) (11.3) (100) (0.0) (9.7) (100) (3.3)

137
Y. Jiang et al.
Fig. 4. Increasing integration and sophistication of urban stormwater management over time (adopted from Fletcher et al., 2015).
technical measures and their performance (Carter and Jackson, 2007;
Gilroy and McCuen, 2009; Berndtsson, 2010; Trowsdale and Simcock,
2011; Ahiablame et al., 2012; Burns et al., 2012; Qin et al., 2013; Wang
et al., 2016a), spatial heterogeneity and adaptability (Gallo et al., 2012;
Yang et al., 2013), catchment and basin effect (Yang et al., 2011; Hamel
et al., 2013; Shuster and Rhea, 2013), and management strategy and
governance (Ferguson et al., 2013; Petrucci et al., 2013; Fletcher et al.,
2015), supported by reliable hydrological modeling assessment (Elliott
and Trowsdale, 2007; Bach et al., 2014). All these important aspects
demand both technical know-how and strong management skills with
governance capacity, challenging China’s ambition for holistic urban
stormwater management.
3.2. Management ideology and system thinking
A core principle implied by the initiative is system thinking for gov-
ernance and development planning that promotes integration and co-
ordination through the whole process of policy implementation and man-
agement, with both grey and green infrastructure supported by enabling
institutions. This is consistent with modern understanding of sustainable
stormwater management and urban transformation in general that requires
new thinking and competences in management and governance beyond
engineering and technology (e.g., Farrelly and Brown, 2011; McCormick
et al., 2013). This new management ideology is exactly what China needs to
address its urban water challenges but is currently missing.
China's water management is traditionally engineering oriented, with a
mindset that humans conquer or dominate the physical environment
through technological and structural measures (Jiang, 2015). To address
water problems, China is used to relying on sector-based, technology-
driven engineering solutions. Even for the SCI, preliminary implementa-
tion across pilot cities at present still retains much of the legacy of the
traditional technocratic thinking, i.e., treating the initiative predominantly
as another engineering project of development, with much focus and
emphasis on the technological or engineering aspect. As such, China needs
138
Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143
to adapt its management ideology, fostering and promoting transition to
system thinking in governance and development planning by capacity
building training and education (Brown and Farrelly, 2009) and research
collaboration (Burns et al., 2015).
3.3. Knowledge, experience, and capacity of learning
The design concepts of the initiative reflecting modern scientific
understanding of urban stormwater management is something new to
China, not only in terms of innovative technologies (Dietz, 2007;
Ahiablame et al., 2012; Jia et al., 2013) but also with respect to man-
agement that emphasizes a paradigm shift from conventional cen-
tralized drainage systems to distributed, nature-based hybrid systems
combined with participatory governance (Porse, 2013; Dhakal and
Chevalier, 2016). Not until recently has China started to pay more at-
tention to holistic stormwater management such as low impact devel-
opment, with limited prior knowledge and experience (Jia et al., 2013).
Understanding the reliability and effectiveness of innovative technical
measures for runoff management under diverse local conditions across
China, while critical to the initiative, remains a knowledge gap (Qin
et al., 2013). The management strategy of distributed nature-based
hybrid systems with participatory governance challenges the current
regime of China’s water management that is sector-based and frag-
mented.
Recognizing its knowledge gap and lack of experience, China has
followed a strategy of “learning-by-doing”, piloting implementation in
selected cities to allow learning for future up-scaling and wider appli-
cation of water resilient urban development. As a matter of fact, pilot
projects for demonstration were developed across the country even
before the adoption of the SCI, which included city roads, green roofs,
rainwater collection parks, green belts, and stormwater management in
residential area (MHURD, 2014b). While experimentation via pilot
schemes provides useful information for scaling up a policy (Heilmann,
2008), much government effort so far has been expended on specific
Y. Jiang et al.
technological and engineering solutions, with insufficient attention
paid to scientific research, experiment-based learning, and knowledge
management (such as city-to-city learning) to build capacity. As yet,
there is no formal system in place to facilitate project monitoring and
evaluation and knowledge exchange, inviting the concern that learning
will not be fully captured and assessment of success will not be made to
support the upscaling of the initiative in the future. It seems that failed
pilots in policy implementation are not studied, little effort is devoted
ex post to examining what could be done to fix problems, and un-
successful projects simply end instead of being the beginning of a long-
lasting adaptation cycle for continued improvement (Li, 2013).
In addition, implementation across pilot cities has largely been
confined to a standard set of technological measures as specified in a
national technical guideline (MHURD, 2014b). While offering useful
information, these technological measures are insufficiently spanned to
allow deep learning required to adapt these technologies and man-
agement processes to local conditions and context. Effective knowledge
management, information sharing, and experimentation-led deep
learning are key elements currently missing that can support Chinese
governments to: 1) build their capacity to better lead the transition
toward water resilient urban development across the country, and 2)
develop and implement technologies and governance processes that are
fit for purpose.
3.4. Participatory and coordinated governance
The greatest challenge for sponge city development probably comes
from the integrated nature of the initiative in an administrative setting
characterized by a hierarchical governance structure and fragmented
institutions. The initiative approach to fostering and improving water
resilience in urban development relies heavily on the extent to which it
is incorporated into urban planning and design, a process that should be
integrative and dynamic. This planning and design process necessitates
cross-sector coordination and joint planning, with the participation and
engagement in knowledge co-creation of stakeholders including re-
levant government agencies and developers committed to common
objectives and proceeding with shared understanding (Roy et al., 2008;
Burns et al., 2012; Dhakal and Chevalier, 2016). The required process
of participatory, joint planning and coordination essentially is due to
the fact that the interconnected social, ecological and infrastructure
systems in urbanized areas are often governed by overlapping and in-
tersecting administrative boundaries of diverse local government
agencies (Morison and Brown, 2010). This process ideally is facilitated
with Supporting information management tools that enable generation
of interactive, co-created designs for stormwater management (van de
Ven et al., 2016). The above planning and design approach, however,
can be difficult to apply in practice in face of a lack of a coordinated
institutional framework (Brown and Farrelly, 2009; Dhakal and
Chevalier, 2016), which unfortunately is the case for China’s adminis-
trative system (Jiang, 2015).
Similar to the water management regime, the governance of the SCI
is characterized by a top-down shared administration among govern-
ment agencies at different levels. Vertically, the MHURD jointly acts
with the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) and the Ministry of
Finance (MF) as the executive units of China’s central government at
the national level guides and oversees the implementation of the in-
itiative by corresponding executive units of governments at lower ad-
ministrative levels. Horizontally, governments at different administra-
tion levels are mainly responsible for mobilizing, organizing, and
coordinating their respective administrative units such as urban plan-
ning and water resources departments for carrying out the planned
activities of the initiative. While administration may be shared, inter-
ests and focus may diverge among government executive units.
Moreover, China’s public policy is traditionally subject to in-
dependent administrative management with limited coordination
across administration (Cosier and Shen, 2009; Jiang, 2015). The
139
Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143
fragmented governance structure often misses the opportunity for joint,
coordinated efforts across sectors in existing policy domains, which can
stimulate innovation and improve effectiveness and efficiency of policy
making (e.g., Uittenbroek et al., 2013; Kok and De Coninck, 2007;
Lafferty and Hovden, 2003). This is true for the SCI. Indeed, projects of
the initiatives across pilot cities are largely conceived and implemented
as independent, standalone activities rather than systematically orga-
nized, integrated components of a program. Project contractors or de-
velopers are not stimulated to look beyond their project boundary.
Additionally, there is a dearth within local government administration
of long term planning beyond the administrative leadership term and a
shared view and consideration of uncertainties. Information manage-
ment tools are also lacking that allow participatory assessment, inter-
active design and communication, supporting coordinated planning and
administration.
Another issue worth mentioning is the possible interaction among
policies and management related to socio-economic or urban develop-
ment. For example, China has currently adopted many policy in-
itiatives, such as smart cities, eco-cities, low-carbon cities in addition to
sponge cities. These policy initiatives inevitably compete with each
other for limited resources available and government political agenda,
and may even crowd out the initiative of sponge cities in the worst case.
How to coordinate, integrate or synthesize different policies and their
interaction deserve serious attention from the government.
3.5. Investment financing
Constructing sponge cities of course comes with a price tag. For the
30 selected pilot cities, the Chinese government pledged a subsidy of US
$ 60–90 million per year per city for 3 years (Ministry of Finance,
2014). China planned to invest US$ 13 billion in total within 3 years to
promote sponge city development in the first batch of 16 pilot cities
with a total estimated construction area of 450 km2 (Chinanews, 2015).
Preliminary estimation based on the plan indicated an investment level
of approximately US$ 29 million for each square kilometer. To what
extent the required investment will be made available in the coming
decades is a question that currently has no clear answer. Even for the
pilot cities, the financial assistance committed by the central govern-
ment is presently for 3 years, with an unclear plan for future upscaling.
To meet the investment needs, the central government encourages
financing from the private sector through innovative arrangements such
as public private partnership (PPP) (NDRC, 2016). Yet, it is currently
impractical to rely on private participation and investment for the SCI
due to reasons such as policy uncertainties and constraints to monetize
the diverse benefits (such as improved livability and environmental
amenity) arisen from the projects, which are largely characteristic of
public goods (see OECD, 2014; Zhang et al., 2016). A business model
attractive to the investment from the private sector is needed but is
currently lacking, with little quantitative information available on the
social, environmental and economic benefits of sponge city projects.
Moreover, the benefits of water resilient projects are often long term
but their costs are upfront, with unfavorable business terms and risk
implication (Bloomfield and Ahern, 2011; Zhang et al., 2016). As a
result, to what extent the private sector is willing to participate with
committed long term investment and how big the contribution would
be are all unclear. In addition, the distrust between government and
private investors further exacerbates the financial dilemma (Economist,
2016), which makes the development of a PPP financing scheme dif-
ficult.
3.6. Implementation pathway
Pursuing water resilient urban development requires a clear
pathway with concrete implementation plans and specific steps tailored
to local conditions (Gallo et al., 2012), encompassing project con-
struction, operation and maintenance (Blecken et al., 2017), and
Y. Jiang et al.
supporting institutions (Brown and Farrelly, 2009; van de Meene et al.,
2011; Porse 2013; Dhakal and Chevalier, 2016). This is particularly
important and relevant to China, given its current governance structure
in which planning plays a critical role.
Yet, there is currently a lack of a clearly outlined pathway with
systematic plans for the SCI. While a technical guideline with demon-
stration projects has been issued, the guidance is unlikely (or not meant
to be) sufficient for local implementation, given the spatial hetero-
geneity and location-specific feature of biophysical conditions, devel-
opment situation, and water issues across Chinese cities. Indeed, local
hydrological process and development requirements are important
elements of consideration for designing a comprehensive stormwater
management system (Che et al., 2014). As such, specific plans and
management institutions guided by scientific research have yet to be
developed and materialized at the local level, a challenging task given
the limited capacity of local governments that again highlights the
importance of knowledge management, information sharing, and ex-
perimentation-led deep learning and peer learning for building local
government capacity.
In addition, effective implementation of the initiative requires
readily available relevant technologies (e.g., rain harvesting) and sup-
porting industries that connect technological innovation to market
application. Yet, the industrial sector related to stormwater manage-
ment including planning, design, construction, material production,
operations and management, is small and underdeveloped, insufficient
to meet the market needs (Xu, 2015). The development of industrial
capacity for supporting sponge cities is much needed, which requires
government assistance.
3.7. Planning and organization
Appropriate project planning with sufficient consideration of im-
plementation time is also lacking, which can affect project quality and
reliability. Rushing through project implementation currently dom-
inates the mindsets of decision-makers and managers, a feature that can
essentially be attributed to China’s conventional technocratic thinking
and top down command and control administration which favor heavily
visible engineering projects on the ground (Edin, 2003; Dai, 2015). This
is also reflected in the relative short time frame set to complete the pilot
cities projects. As a result, unrealistic project planning and command
and control are common that may increase the risk of poor design and
project quality. The limited time frame hardly allows outcome eva-
luation and experience transfer to other pilot projects, and mechanisms
of city-to-city exchange have not yet been explicitly incorporated in the
underlying management processes of this initiative. Upscaling of best
practices to other projects and peer learning between cities, therefore,
still need to be facilitated.
At the national level, the State Council has set up a progressive goal
for the initiative, requiring the absorption of 70% of rainwater to be
used onsite for 80% of developed urban areas by 2030 (SC, 2015). This
goal seems to be ambitious as it may underestimate the time needed for
implementation, given the technical, governance and financial chal-
lenges as described above, not even mentioning the management debt
from the past in achieving the standards and goals of flood protection
and drainage system upgrading across cities (Lv and Zhao, 2013;
TFUFPSI, 2014). Moreover, transforming and shaping urban develop-
ment with improved water resilience under climate change represent a
challenging task not only for China but also for many other countries.
This holds true specifically for the existing urban fabric and to a lesser
extent to new built-up areas. Transforming the existing building stock
requires a long-term, adaptive and opportunistic strategy, with urban
restoration, regeneration, and modernization being key drivers for
adapting the city while offering opportunities to align the SCI projects
with infrastructure and urban renovation portfolios (Veerbeek et al.,
2012; Gersonius et al., 2012; Zevenbergen et al., 2016). For China, the
huge investment needs and a lack of reliable financing schemes and
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Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143
experience call for such a strategy that creates the enabling conditions
for linking the SCI investment agenda with those from other sectors. To
complete this transformation process will typically take a life time of
one generation.
3.8. Economic efficiency and project evaluation
Given the huge costs involved, alongside the need for substantive
change to the planning and governance institution, the economic effi-
ciency of project investments as entailed by the initiative becomes
important. It is often the case that innovative stormwater management
measures have to be economically evaluated or justified against those
of traditional stormwater management regime (e.g., Wang et al., 2016a,
2016b). By comparing the economic costs and benefits of sponge city
projects versus traditional technological solutions or business as usual
practices, an economic efficiency assessment can thus guide project
selection and decision-making, maximizing the value of limited re-
source (Visitacion et al., 2009). In addition, as indicated above, one big
challenge for sponge city development is to identify reliable financing
schemes to develop business models attracting private finance resource.
With outlay of estimated benefits and costs, the economic efficiency
assessment can help guide the development of financing schemes by
making and demonstrating business cases.
Economic efficiency assessment for development projects, however,
has traditionally received little attention in China’s top-down govern-
ment administration. How to economically assess sponge city measures
as compared to traditional solutions is of strategic importance but a
difficult task as well in the policy arena featured by technocratic
management ideology. Capitalizing on its rapid development over the
past decades, China has accumulated rich experience in applying
modern engineering technologies in urban construction projects. From
a sector-based perspective, the traditional engineering approach
therefore may be financially less costly in the short run due to tech-
nological know-how, which is in contrast to that associated with the SCI
new to China plus transaction costs, particularly for integration across
sectors, scope, and time (Wang and Li, 2008). Yet much of the ad-
vantage of the initiative comes from economic efficiency gain, i.e., the
accrual of multiple social, environmental and economic (rather than
financial) joint benefits and linking investment agendas with those from
other sectors, as opposed to single sector-based outcome (e.g., de Graaf
and der Brugge, 2010). Pilot projects may help document the broad cost
and benefit information associated with sponge cities development,
particularly the joint benefits across sectors. The cost and benefit in-
formation would allow comparison and more efficient design while
supporting the identification and development of financing schemes
with demonstrated business cases attracting the private sector.
4. The way forward
Sustainable urban stormwater management, as outlined by the lit-
erature, no doubt is a challenging task faced by all countries in the
world, particularly with the need to account for the consequences of
climate change. This is particularly true for China, which is subject to
continuous population growth and rapid urbanization and socio-eco-
nomic development, and is observing changing weather patterns and
climate. While China should understand and pay close attention to the
challenges for implementing the policy, there are strategies and mea-
sures that may help address those challenges.
From the technological perspective, experiments with the new
concepts and innovative technologies through pilot projects supported
by city-to-city peer learning to accelerate learning and foster innovation
seems to be a promising strategy to deal with the complexity of urban
stormwater management. On one hand, China should expand the con-
sideration of technological options and practices in relation to local
conditions in developing technical guidance. On the other hand, the
government may consider to create an institutional mechanism to
Y. Jiang et al.
materialize and formalize the management of experiment-based
learning, data sharing, and other ways of information exchange through
mutual learning. For example, the government could establish in col-
laboration with local universities and the various stakeholders of cities
a network to initiate a long-term research and learning program on
stormwater management practices, with committed funding and dedi-
cated sites covering representative regions of distinct biophysical con-
ditions across the country. In addition to collecting relevant data and
managing knowledge, the network may also serve as a base for edu-
cation and professional training, a platform for experience sharing, and
thus as an instrument for building collective capacity and supporting
policy analysis while stimulating scientific research.
With the current regime of the administrative system, the govern-
ance of the initiative may be most difficult to address. One possible
strategy might be a dedicated institutional mechanism, responsible
operationally for planning, organizing, coordinating, governing, and
evaluating the implementation of the initiative on the daily base. This
mechanism may be designed to pursue participatory planning and
governance. It should establish and maintain an inventory of projects
implemented under the initiative, with corresponding databases re-
gistering and documenting relevant information such as project type,
technical justification and intended project goal, implementation time
and steps, design and operational parameters, hydrological effect,
technological and economic performance, achieved functional roles and
cumulative effect, integration with ecosystem conservation, and lessons
and experience learnt. The record could be institutionalized as an im-
portant component for establishing accountability and continuity of
government administration across leadership terms. Such an institu-
tional mechanism may serve as the point of contact bridging policy
implementation and the network of long-term research and learning
while supporting international cooperation. It also should play a func-
tional role in commenting and advising urban development planning in
relation to the sponge cities objective, promoting integration with other
policies.
As to the huge investment need, the government needs to be open to
innovative financing mechanisms, strategically mobilizing domestic
and international resources to create favorable investment conditions
with reduced financial risk. For example, the government may consider
issuing national debts to jointly finance sponge cities development. It
may also provide backup or guarantee for the return of private in-
vestment in sponge city projects, shielding away some of the financial
risk. Most importantly, business cases need to be established, which
depend critically on reliable financial and economic data related to
sponge cities development that can be collected with pilot im-
plementation. The government should also explore and identify in-
novative financial instruments aggregating and materializing the joint
cross-sectional benefits of the initiative. Other strategies include se-
lecting implementation pathways that reduce water risks at least cost
over time and ensuring synergies and complementarities with invest-
ment in other sectors.
Given the diverse challenges, implementing the initiative is a
complex system engineering. A good strategy is to take a long-term
adaptive, opportunistic approach splitting the implementation of the
initiative into phases with feedback-mechanisms allowing learning and
adjustment rather than rushing through construction of visible, hard
infrastructure. Operationally, the government should develop an im-
plementation plan with clear pathways and supported institutions and
financial resource. While implementation of the policy has started in
pilot cities, knowledge and information management should be devel-
oped for future upscaling with city-to-city learning mechanisms, which
are emerging across the world such as Local Governments for
Sustainability (http://www.iclei.org/) or 100 Resilient Cities (http://
www.100resilientcities.org/). Given the big cost of the initiative, it is
critically important to document and institutionalize the information
and knowledge management mechanism as suggested above so as to
continuously and dynamically inform decision-making and improve
141
Environmental Science and Policy 80 (2018) 132–143
implementation.
5. Conclusion
China is currently in the process of implementing a policy initiative
called sponge cities to holistically tackle urban pluvial flooding while
promoting sustainable urban development with reduced environmental
impact. This initiative is well-grounded in scientific understanding of
urban hydrology and sustainable stormwater management. It seeks to
alleviate rising flood disasters and related water and environmental
issues by green infrastructure and low impact technologies integrated
with urban development through planning and design, a promising
approach with strong potential to systematically address China’s water
and environmental problems associated with urbanization. It marks a
fundamental shift in China’s water management from the traditional
isolated “grey structure” approach to a more holistic, sustainable urban
planning and design approach that capitalizes on the ecological func-
tion of nature as green infrastructure and that is promising to alleviate
the diverse, interrelated urban water problems faced by China. China’s
ambitious policy agenda, however, is increasingly constrained by lim-
ited or lack of governance capacity required to pursue sustainable
urban stormwater management with rising sophistication and com-
plexity. The sponge cities initiative can be effective only if China
commits to appropriate technical, governance, financial, and organi-
zational measures to overcome the implementation challenges. From
the management perspective, most importantly, shifts are needed from
managing the initiative as an assembly of independent, standing-alone
projects to program-based, participatory governance with coordinated
efforts and adaptive planning that explicitly builds in experimentation
and reflection. An important strategy is to enhance city-to-city peer
learning, sharing experience and promoting good practices and in-
novation, with co-produced actionable knowledge to improve capacity
for building water resilient cities.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported partially by IHE Delft Institute for Water
Education and by the Grant 2013-19 of the Dalian Construction Science
and Technology Planning Fund.
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