Area promoting ecological health in urban construction

A park city under the snowy mountains, Chengdu in Sichuan province adheres to a new model of urban development and continuously improves the ecological well-being of its citizens.

Cycling along the Chengdu Jincheng Greenway has become one of the most popular outdoor leisure projects in Chengdu this year. As the first-level greenway of the Chengdu Huancheng Ecological Park which is built along the Chengdu Ring Expressway, it has a total length of 100 kilometers and 78 “one bridge, one scene” landscape bridges along the entire road, connecting 121 characteristic ecological parks.

“I normally don’t exercise much, but I couldn’t help but join in when I saw the beautiful scenery of everyone riding along the way,” said Tang Wei, a resident of Chengdu.

The construction of the Chengdu Huancheng Ecological Park in city is unique.

Chengdu, a megacity with a population of more than 21 million, is using “green mountains, greenways, water system and parks” as its framework to build large-scale ecological corridors and high-quality green space throughout the region.

The city is constructing an urban interface that sees fields through the window and creates the beauty of the urban pattern that integrates the city and the park.

Longquan Mountain, located in the east of Chengdu, has been transformed into a super-large urban forest park with a total area of about 1,275 square kilometers through artificial afforestation as well as restoration of degraded forests. The park has become the “green heart” of Chengdu.

In Longmen Mountain in the west of Chengdu, the Chengdu area of the Giant Panda National Park with a total area of 1,459 sq km has restored 4,528 hectares of giant panda habitats by adopting a low-interference model.

The city is building thousands of urban parks, Linpan, a special settlement in West Sichuan, and ecological green spaces.

The Tianfu Greenway system with a planned total length of 16,900 km is densely woven into a network, gradually connecting the city’s green water system, forests, lakes and rivers as well as rural areas to form a complete ecological network.

As of the first half of this year, Chengdu has built a total of 5,583 km greenways at all levels. In the next five years, Chengdu will build 1,000 “Road to Home” community greenways every year. By 2025, a total of more than 10,000 km greenways at all levels will be built, and the coverage of the service radius of park greening activity venues in the central urban area will be no less than 90 percent.

Growth  model

The construction of the park city aims to build gardens and increase greenery, solve the problem of urban spatial layout and realize ecological civilization and balanced economic and social development.

Located on the banks of the Xinglong Lake in Tianfu New Area in the south of Chengdu, a green development model featuring water and greenery has emerged.

A few years ago, the muddied land overgrown with weeds became the largest artificial lake in Chengdu with the construction of the park city, with a water surface area of some 300 hectares.

More than 10 life and cultural scenes, such as ecological beaches, underwater bookstores and children’s art centers, have been built along Xinglong Lake. Citizens come to play in an endless stream. The science zone built around the lake is home to the Chengdu branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as well as a large number of technology companies and scientific research institutions such as Tsinghua Sichuan Energy Internet Research Institute, Aerospace Science and Industry and Yuncong Technology.

“When I first came here, I was attracted most to the huge ecological lake in front of me,” said Xu Yan, 33, who quit his job two years ago and came to work in the science zone. He said the beautiful ecological environment and the perfect balance between work and life were his biggest motivations for coming to Chengdu.

Tianfu New Area has transformed the traditional urban area into a path along the mountains, water, and greenery by coordinating the space of production, life and ecology. The model allows the city to grow in an orderly manner around the natural landscape.

Xinglong Lake is a vivid presentation of the green concept in Tianfu New Area and a microcosm of the urban construction of Chengdu’s unremitting efforts to build itself into a park city.

In recent years, Chengdu has insisted on optimizing spaces and allocating resources based on urban functions, improving and strengthening central urban areas, new areas and outskirts zones, accelerating the construction of a multicenter, networking system, and developing via a group-based pattern.

To realize the construction of a high-quality modern community, Chengdu officially launched the construction of the first group of 25 future park communities in February. According to the plan, during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), Chengdu will build 200 future park communities.

Scenario creation

A strong ecological background has opened up a creative space for the diversified transformation of ecological value in Chengdu.

During the construction of ecological projects such as parks, greenways and Linpan, Chengdu has organically implanted high-quality life scenarios and new consumption scenarios such as culture, sports, tourism, and cultural creativity to promote the transformation of ecological value into economic and social value and create more sense of gain and happiness for the general public and tourists.

One example is the Tianfu Feiteng Town, which combines diverse leisure features such as gourmet entertainment, water music, and pastoral experiences through the innovative “greenway plus hotpot” model. 

Feitengli, a core project of the town, is expected to usher in the full completion of the main building by the end of this year. After completion, it will take the Hotpot Cultural Museum as its soul to form a characteristic block integrating characteristic hotpot tasting, culture display and creative experience.

Located on the bank of the Jinjiang River in Chengdu, the Jiangtan Park, which was transformed from a wasteland by the riverside, is no longer a park in the traditional sense.

In addition to the pleasant environment, it focuses on vibrant and fashionable consumption. It has built the largest bowl skating stadium in Southwest China, as well as the largest creative beach and infinity pool in the province.

Low-carbon transformation

Green development is not only necessary to improve people's livelihood and well-being, but also an inevitable part of promoting high-quality urban development and new competitive advantages.

As a State-approved low-carbon pilot city, Chengdu has accelerated the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, guided by the realization of the country’s "dual carbon" goal.

Binhu Design Headquarters, Chengdu’s first Near-Zero-Carbon Building built by China State Construction, has been launched in Tianfu New Area.

Its roof garden covers more than 8,000 square meters, reducing the daily heat; a lighting patio is set up so that 87 percent of the functional rooms meet the natural lighting standard and there is no need to turn on the lights during the day. The distributed photovoltaic power generation on the roof not only provides lighting, but can also be used to charge electric vehicles.

According to Yuan Yuan, director of the double-carbon engineering technology research center of China Southwest Architecture, the project has adopted more than 30 low-carbon building technologies and could save 1.86 million kWh of electricity and reduce carbon emissions by about 1,027 tons per year.

Chengdu has formed rich scientific and technological achievements in core technical fields such as new energy, energy storage, energy saving, resource recycling, carbon capture and storage. 

According to data from Chengdu’s bureau of economy and information technology, the current production capacity of new energy vehicles in the city has reached 300,000. In 2021, the city produced 58,000 new energy vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 112 percent.

More than 60 hydrogen energy industry chain enterprises and scientific research institutions have been gathered, and the main business income of hydrogen energy has exceeded 10 billion yuan. In the field of photovoltaic industry, more than 20 key enterprises have been gathered.

During the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, green and low-carbon products such as "Made in Chengdu" cadmium telluride power generation glass, smart streetlamps, and hydrogen fuel cell buses were put into service, demonstrating Chengdu's low-carbon strength to the world.

Chengdu has also accelerated the construction of a green transport system of "rail, bus and slow travel" in recent years and low-carbon travel is becoming the choice of more citizens. The operating mileage of rail transit in Chengdu has reached 558 kilometers, ranking fourth in the country, while the sharing rate of public transport trips has reached 60 percent. The average number of shared bicycle rides per day has exceeded 2 million.

To practice the concept of green development, Chengdu launched a public welfare brand — Carbon Benefit Tianfu on WeChat, Alipay, Weibo, Douyin and other platforms in May 2021 — to encourage businesses and residents to practice low-carbon development. It allows people to earn reward points through ecological behavior, such as riding sharing bikes and driving new energy vehicles. These can then be exchanged for prizes on the platforms.