Starting this year, all new public building projects in Weihai will fully implement sponge city construction measures, vigorously promoting the construction of sponge-type roads and plazas. In the future, sponge-type buildings, sponge-type roads, and sponge-type parks will increasingly appear in the city.

According to the city's sponge city construction plan, by 2020, more than 25% of the urban built-up area will meet the sponge city target requirements; by 2030, more than 80% of the urban built-up area will meet the sponge city target requirements.

“Sponge” Roads
Can Absorb Water and Prevent Waterlogging

Facing the problem of urban waterlogging after heavy rain, roads “watching the sea” is becoming a new “urban disease.” With the continuous advancement of sponge city construction, more and more urban roads in Weihai are becoming able to absorb water and prevent waterlogging.

The recently completed and opened Tongyi South Road (Jiaozhou Road - Wangdao Road), in accordance with the implementation opinions on sponge city construction, adopted permeable sidewalk tiles and base pavement for the road project. This design uses permeable materials such as permeable bricks, permeable mortar, permeable concrete, and gravel. After rainfall, rainwater quickly infiltrates into the ground and is discharged through underground ditches, without forming puddles. It plays a role in conserving water, alleviating urban drainage pressure, and also plays a peak-shaving role in rainstorms.

In addition, many road projects in Weihai urban area this year have adopted the design concept of sponge-type roads, including reconstruction projects such as Xicheng Road, Miao[Gou] Road, and Qijiakuang Road. Up to now, main urban roads including Xinwei Road, Wenhua Road, Haibin North Road, Jinzhou Road, Anshan Road, and Shanda Road have all been reconstructed according to the sponge city concept.

Water-Absorbing Buildings
Make Life More Natural

With the continuous advancement of sponge city construction, in the future, Weihai will not only have water-absorbing roads but also water-absorbing buildings. Starting this year, all new public building projects in our city will fully implement sponge city construction, and more and more buildings will become the city's water-absorbing “pores.”

This autumn when school started, the newly opened Futai Primary School is a pilot project for sponge city construction in public buildings.

It is understood that Futai Primary School has permeable concrete and permeable floor tiles on its roads, allowing rainwater to quickly infiltrate. The green belts are all sunken, and when rainfall is heavy, rainwater that cannot infiltrate in time can flow into the green belts for temporary storage. In addition, the school has built a 400-cubic-meter reservoir to collect rainwater for school greening. Through the introduction of reservoirs, permeable pavement, sunken green belts, and roof rainwater collection systems, Futai Primary School can achieve on-site rainwater absorption of up to 75%.

This year's old residential area renovation projects also incorporate the sponge city construction concept. At the renovation site of Wenquan Community in Huanshan Street, Wendeng District, construction workers applied the sponge city concept in road hardening, laying permeable floor tiles for the community and building sunken green belts. While beautifying the environment, it also effectively controls rainwater runoff, achieves natural accumulation, infiltration, and purification, and increases surface water infiltration.

“When it rains or snows again, we don't have to worry about water accumulation in the community. Such an ecological design makes our community more beautiful,” said Yu Jinzhen, a resident of Wenquan Community.

Parks and Green Spaces Become Urban “Reservoirs”

Nowadays, more and more green spaces and parks provide citizens with good places for fitness and entertainment, and these green spaces and parks have also become an important part of sponge city construction.

The Qijiazhuang Leisure Park, which was put into use this year, demonstrated the sponge city construction concept everywhere during its construction. The park uses the original lake body as a water storage space, collects and purifies rainwater overflowing from surrounding roads and green spaces, forming a long-term lake landscape. The stored water surface effectively improves the park's micro-environment through natural evaporation. At the same time, the stored rainwater can be used for green irrigation and road washing through the water supply system, achieving recycling. When the collected rainwater exceeds the lake's storage space, it is discharged uniformly through the overflow system.

In addition, grass swales are partially set up where the park trails meet the green spaces, connecting various individual node facilities, service buildings, roads, and plazas. They play a role in rainwater purification and effectively collect excessive rainwater runoff, transporting surface runoff rainwater to the lake. The plazas and road pavements in Qijiazhuang Leisure Park mostly use permeable materials, and engineering measures are used to treat the pavement base to improve the park's rainwater storage capacity.

The four small gardens newly built this year on Shichang Avenue will also incorporate sponge concepts such as permeable pavement construction, creating highly permeable “sponge-type” leisure green spaces.

Ecological Revetments
Beautify Urban Water Environment

The key to building a sponge city lies in solving the “water” problem. To promote sponge city construction, Weihai has implemented a batch of comprehensive river improvement projects, using measures such as sewage interception and pollution control, dredging and embankment construction, and ecological treatment to create multifunctional rivers.

Wangdao River is a major urban river in Weihai. To enhance the urban landscape and promote ecological treatment, this year Huancui District is gradually implementing ecological river landscape renovation on Wangdao River. The original damaged retaining wall on the south bank will be replaced with beautiful ecological revetments and resident leisure and fitness areas.

In the construction of ecological revetments, Wangdao River highlights the “permeability” of the revetments. A reporter recently saw at the site that, according to different landscape functions, Wangdao River has aquatic vegetation revetments, ecological stone revetments, and waterside platform revetments. At the same time, the riverbank uses terrain to create a sunken green space effect, reasonably combining plants with pebbles. Through plant, soil, and microbial systems, it stores and infiltrates, purifies runoff rainwater, not only creating a good visual landscape effect but also functionally meeting the goal of building a sponge city.

In terms of ecological river treatment, the treatment of 15 urban rivers in Weihai urban area, including Zhudao River, Qijiazhuang River, and Bohai River, as well as 18 suburban rivers such as Yangting River, Zhangcun River, Liugou River, and Wuzhu River, has all been completed. This has created multifunctional rivers integrating flood control, ecology, and landscape, forming a beautiful water ecological environment and laying the foundation for further construction of sponge-type rivers in the future.