A subway station floods after rain in Wuhan City, the capital of Central China's Hubei Province, July 6, 2016. . (Photo/China News Service)
(ECNS) -- China plans to accelerate its development of "sponge cities" even though 19 of 30 cities in a pilot program suffered waterlogging this summer, Beijing Times reports.
It will not show immediate effects and its success will take time, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said in a statement posted on its website on Monday.
The sponge city idea aims to allow cities to absorb and store rainwater using their own resources to prevent floods in the rainy season, and release this water for use during dry times. It also intends to help ease water shortages.
According to a guideline on development, 20 percent of urban areas in Chinese cities should meet targeted requirements by 2020 and 80 percent by 2030.
Efforts should be made to coordinate construction of new urban areas to improve water security, resources, the environment and ecosystem, while renovation of old urban areas should focus on easing floods, treating polluted water and addressing urban heat islands to improve living conditions, said an official with the ministry.
Xie Yingxia, vice president of the Institute of Urban Water and Engineering at the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, said sponge cities could still be saturated even when they meet new standards, so heavy rainfall can still result in flooding. China should not stop the program just because some pilot cities failed to prevent floods this past summer, she added.
The Chinese ministries of water resources, finance, housing and urban-rural development approved 30 pilot cities to go "sponge" in 2015 and 2016.
