- Shaping Waterside City Form in Hangzhou through water-oriented ecological Infrastructure    1102 kb by    LUAN, Bo & PENG, Wenjie & Hu, Huan | bo_luan@hotmail.com    Short Outline With the case of Hangzhou in China, the study works across three scales, focusing on shaping the sustainable form of the waterside city by recognizing the value of the water system by Ecosystem Services, and building water-oriented Ecological Infrastructure. Abstract With nearly 300 canals, Hangzhou used to be the typical Chinese waterside city of harmony people-water relationship in the past. Since modernization and urbanization have been taken place in China, leading role that canals formerly played are decreasing, and value of water network are thereby wrongly cognized by people. Hangzhou, consequently, is now facing four crises that Chinese waterside cities are experiencing: 1, Unsustainable urban developing way makes the city sprawling disorderly oriented by roads; 2, Natural and cultural processes carried by canals are obstructed; 3, Traditional fabric and identity of waterside city are disappearing; 4, People-water relationship, as well as city-water relationship, is alienating. This paper, therefore, proposes that Hangzhou should be reshaped the form of waterside city through recognizing value of water system by Ecosystem Services and building water-oriented Ecological Infrastructure which systematically working across three scales. In regional scale (landscape scale), with researching on biological, cultural, as well as recreational systems, the regional Ecological Infrastructure which oriented by water security pattern are established to securing natural and cultural processes in regional area and rebuilding relation between city and water. In middle scale (corridor scale), according to Ecological Services, value of each canal or stream is reevaluated and the main function, which is in order to classify channels and streams, is concluded. Five categories including natural protection, cultural services, recreational services, shipping provision, and flooding regulation are abstracted and concluded depending on main function in Hangzhou case. In site scale (reach scale), based on the categories concluded already, further classification which dividing canals into sections is carried on according to surrounding land use. Design guidelines, containing strategically method such as reclamation, rehabilitation, and preservation for different section, are made so that harmony relationship between citizens, animals and water which existed in historical time can be achieved in particular site again. Keywords canals, waterside city, ecological infrastructure, ecosystem services, Hangzhou Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2008: Urban Growth without Sprawl   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper