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Eco City design to be reviewed in Birmingham

Posted: 18/04/2007

The "world's first sustainable city" - Dongtan in China - will be under discussion at the UK Recycling and Waste Forum, taking place near Birmingham. The planning of the city will be explained by Rainer Zimmann and Alan Barton of consultants Arup who are working with Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation (SIIC) on the Dongtan proposals.

Arup say that Dongtan will be three quarters the size of Manhattan and located on the third largest island in China at the mouth of the Yangtse river. A city of three villages, Dongtan will be completed in phases with the first phase planned to accommodate a population of approximately 10,000 by 2010 in time for the World Expo in Shanghai. By 2040, 500,000 inhabitants are projected.

Incorporating a majority of traditional Chinese design features and Chinese values, Dongtan will also represent the same diversity as other Chinese cities in terms of profession and income, with an estimated 50/50 ratio of lease to ownership forecasted.

While the size of families and bank accounts will vary, Dongtan will find consistency in the absence of waste-filled landfills, exhaust gasses and city-wide pollution observed in most cities around the world.

In Dongtan, all cars will run with hydrogen or alternative renewable fuel, and a combination of cycle-paths, pedestrian routes and varied modes of public transport including fuel-celled buses and solar-powered water taxis along canals, lakes and roads will reduce noise and air pollution. Visitors will be encouraged to park their cars outside of the city and use these forms of public transportation.

The city will get the bulk of its energy from wind turbines, bio-fuels and recycling organic material, and there will be an energy supply center that provides energy to the entire city. The supply center will also be a tourist attraction as well as a leisure park, science exhibition and education center.

A combination of traditional and innovative building technologies will reduce energy requirements associated with heating and cooling of buildings by up to 70 percent. Green roofs on buildings will improve insulation, water filtration and potential storage for irrigation and waste disposal.

The preservation of wildlife and agriculture has been one of the driving factors of the city’s design. Ecological management and the protection of Dongtan’s wetlands, migrating birds and other wildlife, including seven endangered species, are key goals to the planners and designers of the city.

Arup plans to enhance the existing wetlands by returning agricultural land to its original wetland state to create a buffer-zone between the city and the wetland, with the buffer’s narrowest point being 3.5 kilometers wide. Only around 40 percent of the land area of Dongtan will be built upon, and the city’s design aims to prevent pollutants from reaching the adjacent wetland area.

One of the main objectives of Dongtan, say Arup, is to reduce the city's ecological foot-print, the concept that measures how much land and water area a population requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its wastes under prevailing technology.

A conventional city footprint would be 2.332 earths per gross acre of development, while an integrated eco-city approach uses 1.04 earths per gross acre of development. Shanghai uses about 2.332, while New York uses almost 9 and Houston uses a little over 12.

Along the same lines, water and flood management are strictly controlled by drastically lowering the amount of water discharge and water consumption. For example, the water consumption of a conventional city approach is 7,660,989 gallons per day and discharge of 7,660,989 while with an eco-city approach, 4,226,753 gallons per day would be consumed and 1,135,940 gallons per day would be discharged.

Rice and corn will make up for a large portion of the agricultural production, and due to Dongtan’s proximity to the Yangtze River, fisheries will also account for much of the city’s food source. With conventional cities, there would be a net loss of production from 2,740 acres of productive land, whereas according to Arup’s plans, this sustainable eco-city will use 20 acres of city for “food-factories” with no net loss of production on site and half of agricultural land preserved.

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