Enlightenment from Ancient Wisdom and Experience of Urban Canal
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Journal of Architectural Research and Development Research Article Enlightenment From Ancient Wisdom And Experience Of Urban Canal System Against Urban Waterlogging Qingzhou Wu* State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Architecture Science, South China Univ. of Tech., Guangzhou 510640, Guangdong, China Abstract: This paper researches on the causes of the form based upon a loop of moat around the city and urban waterlogging after rainstorm, and studying on a network of canals running inside,(Figure 1.) and it wisdom and experiences of urban canal system against functioned in many ways. Such as Supply of Water, urban waterlogging in ancient China. It is shown Water Borne Transportation, Irrigation and Aquaculture, that urban canal system was of organic and multi- Military defense, Drainage system for floods and functions, being titaled as “the blood circulation of domestic waste, Flood storage and mitigation, Fire city” and that rivers were as the trunk drainage canals, fighting, Shelter from storms, Landscaping and with great density and section for flood passing, recreations, Environment Tempering, and so on. Urban tremendous storage capacity, and perfect management. canal system was compared to the blood circulation The Forbidden City and Ganzhou are two examples. system of man, because of the significant functions that Enlightenment from ancient wisdom and experiences it carried out[1]. will help us to solve urban waterlogging problems. As urbanization developing, urban canal system of ancient China gradually disappeared. In recent 20 years, Keywords: Rainstorm; Waterlogging; Urban canal many cities in China suffered from waterlogging after system; Density; Section; Management; Storage rainstorm. capacity For example, from July 21 to 22, 2012, a torrential Publication date: May 2020 rain fell in Beijing, which killed 77 people, affected Publication online: 31 May, 2020 more than 1.6 million people and caused huge *Corresponding author: Qingzhou Wu, [email protected]. economic losses. The lives of ordinary people have cn been seriously affected. The urban drainage has once again become one of the focal points of social 1 Introduction concern. According to the statistics of the Department of state Cities emerged in China about six thousand years Housing and Urban and Rural Construction from 351 ago. There were many magnificent cities in ancient cities between 2008 to 2010 about waterlogging, there China, such as, Changan and Louyang in Han and Tang are 213 cities suffering inundation, which being of 62% Dynasties, Beijing in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and of the total number[2]. so on. Urban canal system in ancient China is valuable This paper is going to discuss how we are able to heritage of urban culture. be enlightened from the wisdom and experience of Crowned as “the blood circulation of city”, urban urban canal system in ancient China against urban canal system in ancient China had a standardized waterlogging. Distributed under creative commons license 4.0 Volume 4; Issue 3 29 Figure 1. Plan of Suzhou(from stele engraved with map of Pingjiang Prefecture) 30 Distributed under creative commons license 4.0 Volume 4; Issue 3 2 The factors contributed to the increase of 2.2 As urban rivers, lakes, ponds and depressions urban waterlogging being filled up, urban canal system losing the function of drainage and storage 2.1 Urban construction making rivers, canals Urban canal system of the ancient China is composed narrowed, and flood level rising and the risk of moats, canals, lakes and ponds inside and outside of waterlogging going up the city. It has ten functions. Unfortunately, the Guangzhou is one of the examples of urban construction precious heritage left to us was damaged in urban encroaching on flood rivers and waterways in the Pearl construction. With the construction of highway River Delta. and railway, the position of urban canal system in With the development of urban construction, more transportation is greatly reduced, and the defense and more buildings occupied the rivers in Guangzhou. function of modern city is no longer important. Filling The Dashatou port built in the 1960s stretched 100 m the moats, canals and lakes has become general mood into river more than it was before 1949.The people's of urban development. There are few lakes in the city, Bridge was built in 1967, it making the river surface urban landscape has no characteristics, there being no near Shamian narrowed by 60m. charm, urban environment and microclimate being In the early 1980s, the White Swan Hotel was built deteriorating, and getting worse. That the streets and filled with a section of the north bank of White become rivers after rainstorm happens in hundreds of Goose Pool (south bank of Shamian), which affected cities from south to north, with few exceptions. the inner port of White Goose Pool[3]. As a result, The examples of filling urban water bodies were the nine rivers near Guangzhou have been narrowed, abundant in modern times. More typically, more among which the width of the Sanzhi Xiang waterway than 1000 ponds were filled up in Chengdu .In 1958, was 446m in the 1950s, 284m in the 1970s, 162m in the Inner Jinshui River, which was built in the Tang the 1970s, and the narrowing rate being 36%[4]. The Dynasty and has a history of more than 1,000 years, ground elevation of the Long Embankment in Haizhu was so filled that it caused serious losses of Chengdu in Square Section of Guangzhou is only 1.8m. After 1960, the flood on August 17, 1983. the flood water level reached 2m many times, so it was Wuhan is also a typical example. Wuhan is divided often inundated. When the flood water level was 2.24m into three towns by the Yangtze River and Hanjiang in June 1959, the flooded area of Liwan was 0.3km2, River. The average elevation of the urban area is 24m, 472 streets and alleys were inundated, and the water the average annual water level of the Yangtze River depth being 0.6m. If the flood water level rises to 2.50m, in flood season is 25.38m, and the highest flood water 872 streets, including the commercial center, will be level is 29.73m. In the middle of the 20th century, there inundated in Guangzhou. Due to the narrowing and were more than 300 lakes and each lake being of 100 silting of flood rivers(such as the river bed of Sanzhi mu of water surface (6.67hm2) in Wuhan. Historically, Xiang waterway has changed from 6 m to only 2 m)[5], due to the construction of land around the lake, the lake the flood water level of Zhujiang River in Guangzhou water surface has plummeted. There were still 100 lakes has a rising trend, which makes the risk of urban flood in the city in 1949. Later, Boli Dangzi, Xiaodong Lake, rising. In 1994, serious waterlogging occurred in Tea Port, Dusi Lake and other 8 lakes were completely Guangzhou due to poor flood discharge. In addition to filled, now there are only 27 lakes. The capacity of the the narrowing of rivers, that elevated bridge piers from surviving lakes is also shrinking sharply[6]. Yuexiu North to Shawan Grand Hotel built in recent Serious waterlogging was often caused by rainstorm years were located in Donghaochong, which seriously in Wuhan during flood season, and the sharp decrease affected the flood discharge, was also an important of water body in the city was the main reason. On July reason. As a result, the water flooded people’s breasts 21, 1998, there was a torrential rain in Wuhan,90% of in the Provincial Party School area of Huanghua Road, the enterprises in the three towns being affected, 1,183 and the residents in Triangle City and nearby were enterprises without production, and 509 enterprises flooded many times, and the losses were serious. The with half production, finally with a cumulative direct phenomenon of encroaching on flood channels also loss of more than 51.7 billion yuan[7]. Fortunately, existed in Shunde, Foshan, Shenzhen and other cities in some cities attached importance to the protection and the Pearl River Delta. utilization of water bodies, and reduced the flood Distributed under creative commons license 4.0 Volume 4; Issue 3 31 disaster. Due to poor management and poor drainage, 1933, 1939, 1944, 1962,1974, 1981, and 1991. The 60% of the houses in Lingbi County, Anhui Province, height of flood control wall on the Bund of Huangpu were flooded by a rainstorm in July 1990. From March River is built according to the biggest flood in 10 to May 1991, according to the planning requirements of centuries. If the sea level rises by 0.5m, the standard of “renovating and dredging the river around the city in an dike will be reduced to once in a hundred years, and the all-round way”, the renovation was completed. During ability to resist disasters will be significantly reduced. the flood in 1991, the flood discharge in Lingbi County The Pearl River Delta and Hanjiang Delta in was unobstructed, and there was basically no loss in the Guangdong Province are typhoon prone areas. Typhoon city[8]. No. 6903 on July 28, 1969 made the tide level of Mayu Station in Shantou City reach 3.10m. The urban area of 2.3 Urbanization flood effect aggravating Shantou was inundated and the water depth being 1~3 m. waterlogging On July 1, 1981, typhoon surge made the water depth The increase of urban waterlogging is also closely of Shantou city reach to 0.1~0.5 m, and causing heavy related to the effect of urbanization flood effect. losses. On September 9, 1983, Typhoon No. 8309 made Urbanization makes the natural watershed change the high tide level of 2.63m above the plane of the Pearl rapidly, making the original permeable vegetation River appearing in Nansha Town, outside Humen.