Dongtan China

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CTBUH 8th World Congress 2008

Peter Head

Peter Head is a champion for developing global practice that demonstrates that the way we invest public and private money

in the built environment could be made very much more effective if the public and private sector adopted sustainable de-

velopment principles.

He is a civil and structural engineer who has become a recognised world leader in major bridges, advanced composite tech-

nology and now in sustainable development in cities. He has won many awards for his work, including the Royal Academy

Silver Medal, Award of Merit of IABSE and the Prince Philip Award for Polymers in the Service of Mankind.

He joined Arup in 2004 to create and lead their planning and integrated urbanism team globally. He was appointed in 2002

by the Mayor of London as an independent Commissioner on the London Sustainable Development Commission and leads

the planning and development sub-group of the Commission.

Peter is project director for the planning and development of the Dongtan Eco-city on Chongming Island in Shanghai and

other city developments in China for the client Shanghai Industrial Investment Co and is a sustainability advisor for the

London Olympics development project. He has recently been asked by Ken Livingstone to support the development of

a Zero Carbon housing project in Thames Gateway. Peter has also advised the Cathedral Group’s successful bid for the

Circus St development in Brighton which is another zero carbon urban regeneration project.

Gary Lawrence

Gary Lawrence is Arup’s Urban Strategy Leader providing thought leadership for strategic urban development throughoutthe rm’s 86 global ofces. He is the driving force behind Arup’s vision to create communities of the present and future that

address human need and environmental limitations. Gary’s roots are planted in the Pacic Northwest of the United States.

As Redmond City Manger Gary turned the rst shovel of dirt on the development of Microsoft’s campus then, as Planning

Director for the City of Seattle, went on to lead development of the rst municipal sustainability-focused comprehensive

plan in the world: Toward a Sustainable Seattle. National and international recognition of his work soon followed and Gary

has subsequently served as advisor to the Clinton Administration’s Council on Sustainable Development, the UN’s Habitat

II, the US Agency for International Development, the Brazilian President’s Ofce, the British Prime Minister’s Ofce,

the European Academy for the Urban Environment in Berlin, and the Ofce of Economic and Community Development

(OECD) on matters of sustainable development and environmental policy.

Arup is a rm of 9000 engineers, designers, planners, and scientists who have come together to realize their founder’s vi-

sion of shaping a better world for the citizens of today and tomorrow. Arup’s inuence extends throughout the world with86 ofces in 37 countries on ve continents.

[email protected]

Urban Development To Combat Climate Change: Dongtan Eco-city and

Risk Management Strategies

Peter R. Head, OBE, FREng, FRSA1

and J. Gary Lawrence2

1Arup, 13 Fitzroy Street, London, W1T 4BQ, UK 2Arup, 403 Columbia Street, Suite 220, Seattle, WA 98104,

Tel: +1 206 749 9674-228, Fax: +1 206 749 0665, Email: [email protected]

[email protected]




Urban Development To Combat Climate Change: Dongtan Eco-city and

Risk Management Strategies

Peter R. Head, OBE, FREng, FRSA1

and J. Gary Lawrence2

1Arup, 13 Fitzroy Street, London, W1T 4BQ, UK 2Arup, 403 Columbia Street, Suite 220, Seattle, WA 98104,

Tel: +1 206 749 9674-228, Fax: +1 206 749 0665, Email: [email protected]

Abstract

The activities of urban settlements are key contributors to climate change factors. In parallel, global climate change and

its current and potential consequences for life property and prosperity is now accepted as the major challenge for human

society in the next 100 years. The translation of science into policy and practice that stems the acceleration of green-

house gas production, particularly carbon, while also ensuring social and economic development is still in its infancy.

Drawing on lessons learned from the planning and development of a new, low-carbon eco-city on an island opposite

Shanghai in China, this paper explores the potential of an integrated urbanism approach. The objective being not only to

mitigate factors contributing to climate change, but to manage risk, maximize resilience, and promote the successful

economic and social growth of the urban community. We posit that no matter what the scale, integrated approaches –

both in understanding the true nature of the issues and designing solutions – are predictive or more successful outcomes.

Global populations are growing creating stress on existing resources; sprawl consumes natural buffers making metro

areas more vulnerable; distributed governance responsibility confounds coordinated planning; a successful global

economy is dependent on the resilience of public infrastructure and the metropolitan labor market. An integrated

urbanism approach to planning may give us the tools to leapfrog the environmental and public health costs of economic

progress and create a new model for cities across the developing world.

Keywords: carbon reduction, risk management, integrated urbanism

Introduction

Global climate change and its current and

potential consequence for life, property and prosperity

is now accepted as the major challenge for human

society in the next 100 years. Scientific findings and

debate are now considered “settled” though refinement

is required and predictive modeling tools that allow for

better understanding of local consequences are

currently crude. The political translation of settledscience into policy and practice that stems the

acceleration of green-house gas production,

particularly carbon, while also ensuring social and

economic development is less settled.

Most metropolitan design, investment and

regulatory strategies are designed to manage life-safety

and property risks through resistance to natural or

human caused disasters. These strategies are intended

to withstand events up to predetermined breaking

points. The designed breaking points are determined by

probability analysis, risk assessment and cost-benefit

analysis. They are for the most part focused upon

abrupt events rather than the long-wave events such asclimate change that can lead to abrupt activities.

Government, business and society are engaged in

a complicated debate about how, in policy and practice,

the consequences of urbanization for climate can be

reduced.

The Global Response to Climate Change

In most of the developed nations, CO2 emissions

have been relatively constant over the last 25 years.(see

Figure 1).

Figure 1. CO2 levels in atmosphere and global temperatures






redevelopment allow for:

Creation of understanding and definition of

sustainability as a socio-political problem with

technical attributes; not a technical solution with socio-

political implications.

Articulation of integrated design as a risk

management strategy for disaster-resilience. Challenging and leading a fundamental

change in the way design professionals define

problems and introduce the necessary skills to address

them.

These designs and strategies inherently

recognize that there are circumstances in which

nature’s power will overcome man’s ingenuity and the

infrastructure we know how to build or can reasonably

afford. They are based upon extrapolations from

historical records that fail to take into account how

human behavioral contributions can amplify nature’s

processes. Current and predicted consequences of

global temperature rise coupled with choices regarding

location is one example of a long-wave disaster’s

ability to exacerbate abrupt disasters. Associated water

shortages that lead to evermore desperate and

potentially violent competition may be another.

Disasters – caused by natural or human events –

that exceed design standards produce cataclysmic

failure with significant harm, expensive fixes and slow

recovery times. In order to reduce cataclysmic failure,

harm, and expense and to improve recovery times one

might instead take an integrated design approach to

create buildings and communities that are disaster

resilient rather than resistant. Such communitieswould:

Link prevention strategies with buildings and

infrastructure, particularly for essential public utilities,

designed to fail “gently” rather than cataclysmically

and at specific points so that repairs can be made

quickly and easily.

Have energy, water and communications

strategies designed to function detached from city-

wide, regional or national grids so they can still serve

community needs when large systems fail.

Have industrial and food strategies with the

warehousing capability necessary to reduce

vulnerability to just-in-time delivery schemes. Have performance-based rather than

prescriptive regulatory schemes to encourage

innovation.

The Chinese Response

“China’s current development is ecologically

unsustainable, and the damage will not be reversible

once higher GDP has been achieved.” Zhenhua Xie,

Minister of State Environmental Protection Agency

Environmental damage costs the Chinese

economy $200 billion a year, a full 10% of China’s

GDP. The cost to public health and quality of life may be even greater. Over-cultivation, overgrazing and

massive timber consumption have turned one quarter

of China’s land into desert. Over 400 million Chinese

drink contaminated water. The government reckons

that 300,000 people die prematurely each year from

polluted air.

Low Carbon Eco-City Planning and Development

In August 2005, Arup was contracted byShanghai Industrial Investment Corporation (SIIC) to

design and masterplan the world’s first eco-city,

Dongtan, in Shanghai, China (see Figure 3). In

November 2005, we signed an additional contract with

SIIC to work on three further eco-cities in China. The

Dongtan site is 86 square kilometres (8,600 hectares).

By 2010, one square kilometre (100 hectares) first

phase will be developed, to accommodate up to 10 000

people and by 2020, the 6.5 square kilometre (650

hectares) start-up area will be developed, to

accommodate up to 80,000 people. In future

development up to 2050, SIIC hope to accommodate

up to 500,000 people on around 30 square kilometres

(3,000 hectares).

SIIC’s vision is to create a development with

low energy consumption that is as close to being

carbon neutral as possible. To be truly sustainable, the

city must not only be environmentally sustainable, but

socially, economically and culturally sustainable, too.

Figure 3. Location of Chongming Island

Chongming Island is flat and barely higher than

sea level. The first challenge was to decide how to site

the city without putting it at serious risk from rising

floodwaters. Inspired by the ancient Chinese water

towns of the Yangtze River Delta, the site design

features canals in one zone, ponds in another, and a big

lake in a third. Courtyards and lawns drain water away

from buildings and flood cells within the city, similar

to the concept of the chambers in a submarine, are

designed to contain an inundation of seawater in the

case of the city being hit by a violent storm. Instead of

an engineered levy designed to resist stormwater, the

city lies at the top of a gentle hill that recedes into a

wide wetland basin, providing parkland, a bird

sanctuary, and a natural storm barrier.

Reduced Ecological Footprint

Shanghai has a typical ecological footprint of 5.8global hectares per person and Dongtan Eco-City will

be 2.6 (see Figure 4). The Dongtan site is 86 square




kilometres (8,600 hectares). By 2010, one square

kilometre (100 hectares) first phase will be developed,

to accommodate up to 10 000 people and by 2020, the

6.5 square kilometer (650 hectares) start-up area will

be developed, to accommodate up to 80,000 people. In

future development up to 2050, SIIC hope to

accommodate up to 500,000 people on around 30square kilometers (3,000 hectares).

Figure 4. Conventional Planning Approach City Footprint

The delicate nature of the Dongtan wetlands and

the adjacent Ramsar site for migrating birds and

wildlife, has been one of the driving factors of the

city's design. Arup plan to enhance the existing

wetlands by returning agricultural land to a wetland

state to creating a 'bufferzone' between the city and the

mudflats - at its narrowest point, this 'buffer-zone' will

be 3.5 kilometres wide. Only around 40% of the land

area of the Dongtan site will be dedicated to urbanareas and the city's design aims to prevent pollutants

(light, sound, emissions and water discharges) reaching

the adjacent wetland areas.

Although some may initially commute to

Shanghai for work, there will be employment for the

majority of people who live in Dongtan across all

social and economic demographics – over time with

effective policy incentives, companies will be attracted

to Dongtan and people will choose to live and work in

the city. All housing is designed to be within 7 minutes

walk of public transport and easy access to social

infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and work.

Integrated Urbanism and Virtuous Cycles

Conventional planning processes tend to focus

on one issue at a time and too often the impact of one

system on another is ignored until the consequence

becomes a reality. Arup took a new approach to

planning with the goal of delivering better performance

outcomes in cities. We developed a tool we’ve dubbed

an “integrated resource model” that allows us to see

how each change made in one system would ripple

across the city plan and affect those systems that

integrate with it (see Figure 5). Using this model we

can compare the inputs and outputs of any facility, process, product, or human activity on the island. For

example, if we move an office park a mile in a given

direction, the tool can recalculate average walking

distances for commuters, estimate how many people

will drive or take public transit instead of walk, and

then add up the ultimate change in energy demand.

More importantly, this tool allows us to identify places

where one process creates waste that another processcould recycle.

Figure 5. Virtuous Cycles of Value in Masterplanning

Energy Strategy

Dongtan’s energy goals is to reduce energy

demand by 64% and have zero emissions for energy

production, which will save 350,000 tonnes of carbon

dioxide emissions per year.

Dongtan's combined heat and power (CHP) plant

will burn plant matter to drive a steam turbine and

generate electricity. Original thinking suggested the use

of miscanthus, a fast-growing grass that burns clean.However, planting miscanthus fields would sacrifice

considerable land to a single purpose. After review of

readily available sources of biomass we soon realized

that China’s most readily available source is rice husks.

The by-product from one of China’s mainstay products

is typically just discarded by farmers. Dongtan’s plant

will take a useless byproduct and convert it into clean

energy to power the city.

Contrary to conventional city planning practices

the plant will be placed near the city center allowing us

to capture waste heat and pipe it throughout the town.

With good insulation and smart design, the plant couldheat and cool every building in Dongtan. The goal for

the fuel conversion is 80% efficiency.

Energy demand in Dongtan will be substantially

lower than comparable conventional new cities.

Buildings will have high thermal performance that will

have energy efficient equipment and mechanisms to

encourage residents to save energy. Transport energy

demand will be reduced by eliminating the need for a

high proportion of motorized journeys, and judicious

choice of energy efficient vehicles. When it is

completed, the energy used within the city will not add

to the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In

addition to the CHP plan, energy in the form of electricity, heat and fuel will be provided entirely by




renewable means. Electricity and heat will be supplied

from:

wind farms;

biogas extracted from municipal solid waste

and sewage;

photovoltaic cells and micro wind turbines on

individual buildings.A key feature of energy management in Dongtan

will be the level of information provided to consumers

to encourage them to conserve energy by means such

as smart metering and financial incentives. Energy

meters will be placed in clearly visible locations such

as kitchens or offices so that residents can track their

own energy use and get regular reminders over SMS

and email. Up to a reasonable limit energy is

reasonably priced, beyond that threshold the price

spikes.

A recent change in China's energy law allows

Dongtan's power company to sell surplus green energy

to Shanghai's grid, offsetting the cost of expnesive new

hardware until the city grows into its supply.

All waste in the City will be collected and

segregated at source into at least three material

streams. Waste is considered to be a resource and most

of the city's waste will be recycled and organic waste

will be used as biomass for energy production. There

will be no landfill in the city and human sewage will be

processed for energy recovery, irrigation and

composting.

Dongtan will be a city linked by a combination

of cycle-paths, pedestrian routes and varied modes of

public transport; including buses and water taxis.Public transport will use innovative technologies,

which may include solar powered water taxis or

hydrogen fuel-cell buses. Visitors will park their cars

outside the city and use public transport within the city.

Water Strategy

Water consumption will be reduced by 43% and

water discharge will be reduced by 88%.

Twin water networks run throughout the city.

One supplies drinking water to kitchens, the second

supplies treated waste water for toilet flushing and

farm irrigation (see Figure 6 ).

Figure 6. Dongtan City Water Networks

Agricultural StrategyPlant factories will have a production output

equal to the loss of productive land required to build

the city.

Underground "plant factories" installed in

hollowed out hills at the edge of the city will provide

stacked trays of organic crops, growing under solar-

powered LEDs, projected to yield as much as six times

more produce per acre than conventional farming (see Figure 7 ). The plant factories provide 9 hectares for

agriculture with no loss of productive land. A

conventional city of this size would require 1000

hectares dedicated to agricultural production.

Figure 7. Underground Plant Factory

Transportation StrategyThe city has a goal of zero carbon emissions

from energy for vehicles (see Figure 8). Improved

accessibility reduces daily travel to 4.2 million

kilometers with an average trip length of 24 kilometers

versus the 6 million kilometers traveled daily in a

conventional city with average trip lengths of 56

kilometers and carbon emissions of 400,000 tonnes a

year.

Figure 8. Dongtan City Car Demonstrator for 2010

Freight Strategy

Trucks delivering goods from across China park

at consolidation warehouses on the edge of the city,

then load up shared, zero- emission delivery trucks to

reduce traffic and save gas (see Figure 9).




Conclusion

As we have maximized the ability of urban

development to mitigate its consequences for climate,

we cannot be satisfied that we are done. Existing

climate changes are increasing risks for coastal

Figure 9. Dongtan City Freight Strategy

communities around the world and will continue to do

so. There is a bow wave effect set in motion by the

things that we have already done and climate change

will continue to impact us no matter what we do today.

There is one school of thought that “natural

disasters” as such do not exist. What do exist are

natural phenomena such as wind, flooding, fire,

drought and infectious disease. The disastrous element

is added when human society puts itself in the way of

likely natural phenomena or changes the ecosystemsthat have evolved in relationship thereto.

Many communities and metropolitan areas have

put themselves in harm’s way or grown in ways that

have eliminated the buffers that once provided some

protection to smaller populations. We’ve often

exacerbated the inherent difficulties through the

designed fragile resource delivery systems that are

easily disrupted.

Natural systems are area appropriate and have

evolved over millennia to absorb the forces at work

and recover quickly. Much human development

destroys the natural systems that have evolved andsubstitutes inadequate alternatives. The consequences

for New Orleans of Hurricane Katrina were made

much worse as a result of filling of surrounding

marshlands for housing development and substitution

of dikes as the protective mechanism for the City. New

Orleans may be the best current example of ill-advised

efforts to construct facilities to withstand natural forces

at work. The consequences for the City demonstrate

clearly that when human systems fail they do so with

great consequence for life and property. They also

demonstrate that the financial, cultural and social costs

of recovery can be extraordinary. Human development

in many ways has become the opposite of bio-mimicry – most human development exhibits bio-ignorance or

even bio-arrogance. As climate change and its myriad

consequences unfold the world will not be able to

afford development or redevelopment of urban

settlements that are not resilient and adaptive.

Public and private investment and regulatory

environments focused on risk reduction help build

confidence within the public that hazards have been“managed.” In many instances the length of time

between events makes location and functional risk less

intuitive and management of known risks less

politically viable. Often government subsidy or private

indemnification reduces the financial risks associated

with hazards.

From an ecological, economic and life-safety

perspective there is certainly land that should not have

been or should not be developed. For development that

already exists it is highly improbable that individuals

or communities will move to safer locations, though it

has happened with some smaller communities along

the Mississippi River in the US and in some coastal

communities in response to erosion.

It may be possible to discourage future

development but the immediate past does not give one

confidence that the public’s interest in avoiding

subsidization of poor location decisions will prevail

over individual property interests and/or government

development strategies. Government is not likely to

buy back coastal properties even though in many

instances it would be much cheaper to move

communities than provide insurance subsidies and pay

for cycles of remediation and recovery.

As unwise or economically unsound as somedevelopment decisions might have been or might be in

the future it is likely that development will continue in

areas faced with highly probable hazards. The

challenge in these instances will be design of

infrastructure and buildings that recognize the

inevitability of system failures and that, therefore, are

based upon the need for reductions of harm and more

rapid recovery. For metropolitan areas as well as

smaller communities, the capacity to be resilient in

response to nature’s phenomena is a key to

competitiveness and livability.

There are a number of reasons why metropolitan

areas should be particularly sensitive to the need for disaster resilience strategies in the face of known and

unknown consequences of climate change:

In most instances populations are growing and

therefore creating stress on existing resources and

systems.

Poorly designed articulated growth strategies

promote consumption of natural buffers, steep slopes

and other critical areas, thus making the metro areas

more vulnerable.

Distributed governance responsibility makes

coordinated planning, investment and reaction difficult.

Corporate resilience necessary for maintainingcompetitiveness in the global economy is dependent on




Figure 10. Dongtan Eco-City

the resilience of public infrastructure and the

metropolitan labor market.

A lack of resilience reduces return on

investment from both public and private sectors.

Dongtan strives to serve as a model for cities

across China and the rest of the developing world —

cities that, given new tools, might leapfrog the

environmental and public health costs that have always

come with economic progress. It is to be hoped that

existing American and European cities may learn from

the tools and strategies being employed in the creationof Dongtan, especially when they redevelop industrial

plots or build out at the edges.

Documents

Dongtan China