Guizhou's sponge city project wins intl award

Aerial view of the sponge city pilot area in Guian New Area. [Photo/ddcpc website]

Guizhou's "Research and application of key technologies in sponge city" project being developed by China Communications Construction recently won the International Road Federation's Global Road Achievement Award (GRAA), becoming the first sponge city project to achieve the feat.

GRAA is considered the Nobel Prize in the global road industry and represents the highest level of the industry's technological development and management capability. It includes 12 categories, such as R&D, environment, and design, each of which awards only one project per year. Guizhou's project was recognized in the R&D category.

The project is based on the public-private partnership (PPP) project of sponge city pilot area in Guian New Area.

It systematically studied the sponge city construction model, sponge facilities, rainwater collection and utilization, urban water ecological restoration, sponge roads, urban green spaces, PPP investment and financing mode, and performance evaluation.

The project presented integrated and innovative results, which reached internationally-advanced levels.

During the implementation of the project, China Communications Construction used source emission reduction, process control, system governance and overall construction, instead of end-of-pipe treatment.

In this way, China Communications Construction successfully built a three-level control barrier system for water quality and quantity, so that the total annual runoff control rate of Guian's Yueliang Lake, Xingyue Lake and Chetian River is no less than 90 percent.

The approach successfully solved the problems of uneven distribution of water resources within the year, and eliminated serious pollution from internal and external sources.