China is Building Sponge Cities to Fix Its Flood Problem
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- čas přidán 16. 08. 2021
- In its battle against the floods, China is upgrading cities so they welcome water, rather than hold it back. For more by Tomorrow’s Build subscribe now - bit.ly/3vOOJ98
Executive Producer and Narrator - Fred Mills
Producer - Adam Savage
Video Editing and Graphics - Thomas Canton
Additional footage and images courtesy of Al Jazeera, Archi-Tectonics NYC LLC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, BASF, China Cultural Center in Brussels, China Everbright Water Ltd, Consorzio Venezia Nuova, Google Earth, Lombroso/CC BY-SA 3.0, SUEZ, TURENSCAPE and OpenStreetMap Contributers (www.openstreetmap.org/copyright).
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I think that's a record for most puns in a video haha. Great content though, didn't even know these schemes existed!
Even if china continue to its development especially by dedicating to its people the west will continue to criticize China by creating different kinds of blames
He's getting closer and closer to a "How It's Made" video every day... :)
@@dineshsigdel6212 lol
@@saikatbag3961 what happen broo r u indian Japanese or from americans puppets allies ??
This is lie, Chinese builders try to go as cheaply as possible. Look for why China buildings are falling and tofu buildings, corrupt Chinese gov cannot even take blame for deaths in the tunnel
Wetlands are grossly underrated. Urban parks should be built more like wetlands rather than gardens.
Yeah but they can become breeding grounds for snakes and mosquitos. Very dangerous for children and families.
agree! but wetland also encourages mosquitoes.... so, people might die from malaria instead....
Did you watch the video? I don't think you did. Skimmed, opened your face hole and spewed your stupidity.
@@mountainous_port we can do without some of those snotnosed little diseasebags.
@@mountainous_port 😂
These designs might not be a silver bullet, but the ecological benefits it provides make it a unique component to any comprehensive solution to the issue of proper drainage in cities.
I've been posting messages directly for the PRC Gov for many years on relocating entire residence in flood prone areas! They should utilize the "ghost cit/towns" for the relocation!
'Ecology'?... It's the total OPPOSITE.
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 Ghost cities and towns in China are not really 'Ghost', they're mostly private owned properties for investment purpose. You cannot relocate people into someone's house. So the problem is, how to suppress the urge of using real estate as a major investment option, and how to change policy which makes these multiple house owners to rent their house with an affordable price. There is no easy way doing this.
@@siyuanfeng1368
That's right. I put the double quotation marks to indicate as such. An Anti-China propaganda this "ghost cities/towns"!
@@siyuanfeng1368 that is true but we all know the prc gov can force private owners out
Everything in China is absolute overwhelming and astronomical. Even their nature disasters. I really got sympathy with them. But also great adoration for their ability to overcome problems and their constant endurance in long lasting havoc situations.
In mythology, West had Noah to built a ship to escape the flood. In China, the great leader Yu organized people to build dams and drainage canals so disasters can be prevented.
It didn't work.
This is essentially artificial wetlands. In Australia where weather events come in supersizes. Severe drought followed by huge floods. Before large scale farming was introduced, food water was allowed to flow into the wetlands and recharge the systems. Modern farming practices use dams to control the flows, and then exploit the available food water in an unsustainable manner. This deprives the wetland of the normal flood water to regenerate the plants as well as recharging the underground aquifer. As a result, plants in the wetlands die en-mass. Without the plants, the wetlands aren't able to soak up the flood water.
Some local councils have set up such "sponge" park, but on a small scale. They do exactly the same as the sponge cities described here. The runoff during a storm ended up in the collecting ponds which are populated with water plants such as reeds. Reeds serve as filter to cleanse the dirty water. In times like now when clean drinking water is getting scarce, and the underground aquifers are also depleted as demands grow, I think this is a very good set up.
Sponge city concept is a brilliant idea and even though its not hugely efficient in case of severe floods, the effect it has overall on the nature footprint and well being of the citizens is amazing.
The problem is they plant the same type of trees
These Chase away bird's
@@directlinkrexx4409 i don't think they are same type of trees bcoz these places are designed by professional architectural and landscaping firms. I'm sure they know the flora and fauna of the specific area.
@@directlinkrexx4409 I think you’re referring to China’s great green wall
@@fredericoduvel3092 they fixed that issue after the first time a pest killed many of the trees. They use more diverse flora now.
Artificial solution.
As a fan of engineering and watching the discovery channel growing up, China really a powerhouse now for civil and global infrastructure projects. Its like we are witnessing the building of the great wall. Amazing… thanks for covering this
except they're all falling apart as soon as they're done being constructed (the three gorges is a national embarassment - the hoover monument was built almost a century ago and that thing hasn't nudged at all - the gorges is sliding down the river)
africa and asia are the next frontiers for civil engineering
Human rights tho :(
How the hell you guys are using CZcams. I thought CZcams was banned in China 😂
@@haosru .Dude , I'm Dominican by the Way
Some of the Chinese city’s i saw here were amazing. Their architectural knowledge has risen and this sponge city stuff is really neat.
Heard the term “sponge city” for the first time in this video. The same goes for China's issues with sealed urban areas causing excessive rain and flooding as well as its sponge city approach! Continuous learning at its best! 🤗 Thank you! 💐
"None of us likes the rain", false.
I love the rain to be honest, nothing beats getting a nice coffee and sitting outside under something and watching a big storm!
Living in Dubai I know your comment is 100% true🙌😂
I prefer rain/snow over sunshine tbh 🤷🏽♂️
Rain is awesome, but 600mm rain over 3 days is something even the most avid rain lovers would prolly hate
Came here to say this.
Beyond smart. Designing infrastrurcture based on natural models will provide an environment conducive to greater health and productivity. Nice! Highly creative.
The Sponge Cities is a good idea since its reflecting nature as well as adding greenery to the cities
Time and time again, nature teaches us that you cannot fight water - only live with it. If you want to talk to masters of water management, talk with Dutch engineers and planners on how you can create space for water which is at the core of the issue.
That's probably exactly what the Chinese have done.
Quite sure the Dutch dont hv to cope with 600mm of rain in 3 days. 🤭.
Dutch uses brute force, their Water problem comes from the sea.. not the weather.
except the dutch don't receive storms on the scale china does, and their rivers are no where near the size of china's rivers. Jakarta is a good example of dutch engineering and policies from the dutch that fucks over a city of over 10 million in the future as they are sinking, in a climate that receives heaps more rain than the dutch.
@@kentershackle1329 Nope. Rivers are also part of their water management plan. You kinda have to if a third of your country lies under the sea level, don't you?
@@peepeetrain8755 Well, what better country to ask for advice since the Dutch have a knack for keeping their land dry that is also sinking at the same time. It's funny you blame the Dutch for Indonesia's problems
New drinking game: every time Fred says "soak up" take a shot
*always drink responsibly
@@TomorrowsBuild *always soak responsibly
@@Coracora-he9pz *always drown responsibly.
Oh n-
if we drink water for this game, they might not be any more flooding
Every single one of them sponge parks looks so cool, from where the trees and other plants are placed to that brightly coloured bridge. I wish we had them here but luckily we don't need them and also this would have to be one of my favourite videos.
Yep. Those terraced gravel stone and plant design, I would love playing in there if I was a kid. Heck, even as an adult. :))
This is silly spongecities are nothing new, Zhengzhou was already announced as a sponge city but had hundreds of people die. It feels like he is just reposting china's propaganda headlines. Spongecities have already failed the chinese.
@@LittleTut Too bad this is stale news and this guy missed the first CCP progpaganda headline and now wants to act lime this is some amazing new endeavour they are undertaking.
It is a year worth of rainfall hit the city in less than a day and it was supposed to be once in a thousand year flood. If you design something that can handle such a scale then you are over engineering.
@@anestacom Except that isn't what flooded it
This is so cool. Bio and geo engineering for the climate challenges we face is both impressive and a necessity. Love these videos
look how great it works with these same cities being destroyed by floods. calm down
@@briandavis849Yup. See the past few days. Chinese urban planning, lack of infrastructure, and ineptitude causes catastrophic failures every time there's a monsoon.
@@LRRPFco52 can't exactly expect them to solve the problem overnight. I don't think anyone involved in these projects has any delusions that they are solving the problem 100%. It's just coping with natural processes the best to their ability and making progress over time. Just like everyone else
I wish that porous paving solution could be adapted more easily for areas that experience winters with temps below the freezing point
Damn, that's some clever development, especially the filtering functionality of the bioswale. I'm always astounded by the scale and designs of construction in China...as reinforced by that outstanding looking building off to the (screen) left @ 2:10. Now that's excellent styling. I think the Scandinavian countries, Singapore and China are some of the most forward thinking in terms of planning and architectural construction. Thanks for posting.
Development? they are just planning. China got the money so it wont be long.
lol, can't tell if this is a highly layered sarcastic joke or if you just don't know much about china - theres buildings identical to the one you pointed out that are swaying in the wind and about to fall apart (and hundreds of thousands of other buildings falling apart from tofu dreg and bamboo rebar)
@@_Aemse Don't live in the past! Chinese are learning from lessons just like others. That being said, nobody can stop you from feeling better or superior by trash talking others.
@@2melinc funny thing the city that got flooded recently supposedly already spent billions to prevent or protect from floods.
@@2melinc china makes shit buildings and thats fact. Their homes last a couple years before falling apart.
The one in Zhengzhou is a tough example, the city is too flat and have no major rivers around it, it actually make people to criticize why they decided to build such a huge city in there in the first place. (They city was largely built after 1960s)
Yes, the North China Plain is so flat, rainwater really has nowhere to go.
It is fine, what happened there was a once in a thousand year event, so highly unexpected.
Unlike most people think abroad, Chinese cities tend to have relatively massive proportion of green in the urban areas, It surprises many of my European friends. Those sponge city schemes look dope, hope they’ll soon complete the digital monitoring system at the national level to tackle floods and droughts.
theres nothing except water pricing that will save the north from droughts and nothing except admitting they're wrong (damming the watersheds for 1/4 of the world) will solve the floods in the south but the Junta in charge of Beijing is hellbent on destroying the country before they leave it.
It is like having 2+ central parks as standard and some are very vertical.
@@Drownedinblood Even third tier cities in China have greens everywhere, boulevards, parks, mini parks in residential areas. Where I live in Belgium, you can barely see trees in city centre, sometimes it's just depressing.
Dope indeed. So, basically, China is allowing wetlands again....
@@aneash482 well to be fair Belgium is a small city so it doesn't have geography as diverse as China
Zhenghou Was actually one of the first cities to experiment and use this sponge city method which I think cost around $8 billion, but after the rampant flooding that occurred in which the sponge city didn’t help much at all. The city officials announced that it will only help with very small or moderate amounts of rain and not large amounts of rain to an extent or floodlight rains like which has been happening every single year in China recently.
I suppose before the $8billion upgrade, the city wasn't even able to handle small amounts of rain....and now they can handle small amounts of rain after spending $8B...haha
It could not be that those funds were embezzled by ccp officials causing the infrastructure to be faulty, of course not.
A year's worth of rain in a day... tell us which city in the world could have handled that? Some people are so ideologically blind. CCP this, CCP that. It's CPC, if you're gonna denigrate them right.
@@thorsb606 The floods in Europe didn't lead to people getting trapped in flooded metros and car tunnels. The officials of the Chinese communist party (CCP) opened the reservoirs around the city cos they thought they would not be able to handle the masses of water. But did they officials warn the people, did they shut down the metro? Massive floods can happen and if your system can't handle the amount of water then you at least give the order to evacuate people before you open the floodgates to release water.
@@thorsb606 if you go to China you’ll realize that light and moderate rains in many areas will cause flooding and inundate the area because they have really bad water drainage systems throughout the country or no water drainage systems at all throughout many places.
1: Turn your city into a sponge.
2: Create a giant bar of soap to wash of the pollution.
3: Weave the world's biggest bath towel to dry off.
Haha!
😂😂😂
Sponge Bob will be the chief architect.
***Chinese govt furiously taking notes***
Love the development in China. Super grand and innovative!
Even if these projects are inefficient in stopping floods they are such awesome public spaces and ultimately increase population happiness.
1:25 O my God, it's a dinosaur!
THANK YOU! I saw it too….. 😂
Wow the parklands just look gorgeous!
The flood in Zhengzhou is extraordinary, the amount of rain fall is beyond their expectations. Anyway the idea of a sponge city is a good one. I would suggest build additional drainage system to cope up with such torrential downpour in order to prevent future flooding.
I'm surprised communists haven't blamed USA for the rain yet.
@@sk-sm9sh They are thanking USA for bringing water into their land. Hope they will do more.
@@sk-sm9sh someone actually floated the idea of weather control weapons
@@vinniechan But the Chronosphere is way better and cheaper.
@@vinniechan orange man.
Sponge cities is such a great idea, even just having a garden on roofs would mean less work for the sewers
Umm.. Roof?
@@nid4u yes thats what the top of a building is called, if you had a garden there the rain water would be absorbed and wouldnt end up in the sewers
@@saintarj4552 and then? Leak into the building?
@@nid4u There are ways to drain it through piping systems and whatnot.
Definitely!
I'm pretty sure that roof gardens are becoming increasingly popular in China, actually.
My own grandparents have a little garden plot on the roof of their apartment, which my grandma tends to everyday. She got it recently, but that just shows the recent trends.
These parks design looks so magnificent between the concrete jungles
I want to congratulate Fred on not butchering the chinese names this time, especially those with difficult pinyin letters like Chongqing and Zhenjiang...
Until Zhengzhou.
There's always one eh
Haha, I noticed that, too. :-D
Yeah Zhengzhou is pronounced more like "jherng-jho" not "zeng-zow"
China is blessed with abundant of rain to grow crops to help feed its massive population. Now China must build world-class infrastructure to capitalize on this gift from nature.
Yeah… draught is still very common in China as its seasonal climates sometimes mismatch the water demand of irrigation agriculture. Farming is retreating in regions where irrigation agriculture is simply not sustainable while animal husbandry or forestry are often seen as alternatives.
Yes, seems like a potential legit opportunity can be made from crisis.
Western spies collapsed our dams! /s
@@BichaelStevens and in new York, Chinese spies have collapsed our american dams. New York is completely flooded..
@@Elfangorlanzhou uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I dont really know how they can plan for a year's worth of rain falling in a few days. That's insane.
They can't, this is only propaganda. Now is a very interesting time for this video to come out right after the flood.
1:24 Oh no! Not just floods, but dinosaurs too! 🦕
They also turned some part of deserts into forests to stop sandstorm from covering the whole city Beijing
Well when the wind blows it will happen either way, but hopefully at lesser degree and lower magnitude
Wow, the ccp are true masters of the universe! I wish they could run the EU and US as well. We would be so lucky to have a dear leader.
@@kpopkop3957 50 cent army spotted
What utterly nonsense that is! Yes they tried and miserably failed!!!
@@timothymcgee871 lmao what? They did infact decrease the severity of the sandstorm. Failed? Yeah you failed to respect someone else's achievement huh?
very cool. i remember years ago reading an article about how the cities in the pearl river delta were in danger of floods because so much of the natural swampy wetlands were replaced by buildings and roads in recent decades (when my mom left china in the 80s, there was not even a single highway in her city yet). hope they implement this program in guangzhou too!
With this topic in mind, it would be great to take a look at the storm drain system in Tokyo.
东京甚至没有雨污分流，雨水和污水一起排入东京湾，东京奥运会恶心的水质就看得出
@@user-ut1et1vs1n tiananmen square
Tokyo is under sealevel, sooner or later the city is doomed, since "sponge" system would not work. Earthquake is adding issue.
Tokyo sinks even further bc too much heavy buildings are build and they forbid groundwater use, which adds sinking rate.
Sponge city is actually mimiking natural delta area ecological systems, which is smart.
See Japanology nhk series
@@willfreeman4208 what's wrong with you? slavery? opium exports? imperialism? overthrowing and invading countries? so ?
It started raining just now.
In addition to rainwater management, this is an excellent strategy to mitigate heat island effect as well. Excellent video, and looking forward to similar types of videos
Another fascinating chapter in the saga of cities. Thanks for sharing!
This was actually a very cool and informative video. Great work team!
now this is FASCINATING and doesn't hurt the environment
Whilst there is clearly work to be done with these "sponge city" technologies, especially with the recent floods, but these ideas would be useful for any city to employ. London could definitely use them.
Wait….I was getting sad waiting for another B1M video but then I realized there is another whole new channel??? Is this heaven?
And also, this sponge city thing needs to be adopted by Bangladesh the most, they always have severe floods.
We built a new house in flood zone area and our city code requires us to use permeable blocks for driveway. I think it is the same "sponge" idea to allow water to be absorbed into soil.
Your content is most enlightening, thank you 🙏🏻
Great video. Loved it as always thxs for your incredible work.
I thought the voice sounds familiar and yep, it's a B1M channel :)
Great video, great puns. Thank you
Haha, you’re welcome!
didn't even know about these, they're gorgeous and so smart! incredible to see natural design incorporated into cities, after all nature's had billions of years to figure it out.
Amazing. Thanks for the video and informative content.
Same problem currently in parts of Germany (where I’m from) and also parts of Belgium&Netherlands
Missed pun Fred, you should have said, "if you wanna soak up where construction is headed"
Great development. I'd furthermore suggest to install such projects in higher places, i.e. skyscrapers, for the amount of collected water might increase and also to be sewed/filtered of less pollutants..
Great to see China's architecture and infrastructure returning to the root of working with nature and not against it.
Thought that was a nice idea too, unfortunetly the new architecture looks too modern.
Just amazing! Would not be surprised if they'll solve how to prevent flooding in a severe pouring rainy weather as well.
They should give rivers the space they need just like the Netherlands with ‘Ruimte voor de rivieren’ program!
They should actually have a real functioning system instead of just showing off. Chinese infrastructure looks impressive, but it's actually just a facade.
I really wish they would put the names of the cities on the screen as they appear, because the narrator's pronunciation makes several of them unintelligible...
more projects like this in Australia please!
This channel deserve millions view and sub.
Loved this video! Just a heads-up, "Zhengzhou" is pronounced more like, "Jeng Joe." "Zh" is a tricky sound in Chinese for us English speakers. 😆
That translates to Common Joe 😅
This honestly annoyed me lol .... Like even if you understandably don't know, its not that hard to put that in Google translate and get the correct pronunciation
Simply impressive!
pretty crafty way to deal with the problem & drinking water problem @ the same time.
"none of us like the rain" LOL... talk to you... i love raining! 😅
It sounds like they will have to do something similar to Tokyo and their flood tunnels, Japanese have mastered water control
I love the idea of a sponge city. Every city should have a water storage area, because they look awesome. Cities also should make a rule that every flat roof should be blue/green or white. If a country would do that it will be definitely one of the best "tomorrow's builds " 🥳 in the world
Learnt today that in Switzerland they actually have this rule (for over a decade in some cities) that every new building should have a green roof. Great idea.
Love this. Thanks.
For a second, I thought I am on the B1M channel. Seems B1M is still active, so it's one channel with good content for us. Best of luck
1:25 Lochness reappeared in China during floods.
On the other hand, if the city of Zhengzhou didn’t spend those billions to build up a sponge city, the casualty would have been exponentially higher in the 2021 flooding incident. Considering the lives saved, I’d call it money well spent.
more would have been saved if they didnt open spillways and blow up dams with no warning given.
@@lostaris Yup, the main culprit here is the Dam.
It literally couldn’t have been worse at zhengzhou. That wasn’t even natural
@@lostaris there will always be armchairs critic. Who is not capable of criticising after the event - every Tom Dick mron idoit come crawling out and spew like an expert.
Given the 600mm of rain 24vhourz the spills will collapse on capacity and the rush of water at point of collapse will be most devastating. Opening the Spillway at an early stage moderate the water flow rate and the damaging effects of flood water flow.
That hydro engineering. Keep to your popcorn and Broke Back movie
@@wongcy713 Killing tens of thousands of people is evil and criminal. Only a spectacularly awful government like China could have killed so many. The wasted money saved no one. Other countries have dams and don't kill people all the time.
I thought you were the same narrator as B1M! Love the content& just noticed that Adam Savage is the producer. Cool!
Amazing thanks for sharing.
The Dutch "Ruimte voor de rivier" project has the same "spunge" idea.
except it actually works :)
Living next to the Meuse river, I actually am glad it does… 😅
Yet again, another amazing video!
You havent even watched it yet lmao
I wondering why youtube not banning or demonetizing this vid yet, they hated china.. maybe soon lol sadly
@@mikemr574 Why would CZcams ban this video? Google is trying to get back into the Chinese market, they are doing everything they can to please the CCP. And this video is a perfect piece of propaganda.
I like this idea of sponge cities. I think it you start with things like this, you'll be able to move on to areas that will have more severe storm problems, and solve those as well. Just about every successful project starts out with learning curves and as one progresses through them one finds out more information and that will in turn help to develop more effective ideas and solutions.
Great content and very informative
THIS, is what a responsible media, and YT should be.
With China, you never really know whether you're looking at CGi or actual cities.
Love your vids
6:28 Wow I can't believe I can see my home city on CZcams!
“Soak up the sporting atmosphere.” Keep up the daddy jokes, please
Tell me you’re British without telling me you’re British, “none of us like the rain“
LMAOOO
Mind tell me what it means? I don't get it.
Great work.
Very good report.
Those puns . ahhh those puns . SOAK illing
When I read the title, I was thinking the sponge cities was there to soak up excess population wanting to move into more urban areas :P
Apparently a sponge city is one where they redirect water :P
Worked out great.
Thats pretty cool. Reminds me of Singapore's project of a sponge park/canal.
When it comes to China, I'll admit I both admire it and fear it at the same time.
Fear not, China never invaded or bombed any foreign country like our democrazy murica !
@@WANDERER0070 When China built ships and sailed the world, they brought gifts to other nations - when the west built ships and sailed the world, they enslaved other populations...
@@leannhocuspocus4810 Gifts and 50,000 marines. Don't forget Zheng He had a massive army on those treasure ships and he felt free to depose quite a few kingdoms with military force.
The way China acted back then is similar to how the US acts now. Two peas in a pod.
Who else noticed that person falling at 3:30 🙈
This is a step forward of a natural and beneficial ecosystem based on new design and building, impressing!
1:25! I found the Loch Ness!! 😂😂😂 It's been in China the whole time!
I think it's safe to say that China is looking into a solar punk future!
You did well, brother. Glad for China🇨🇳.
1:25 Look at that! Even the dinosaurs got flooded out.
I can see your hard work for pronouncing these cities’ names. You got most of them right. 😂
I soaked up this video...Great concept for cities.
*This is literally my favourite part of China, they can do so much good and are so creative and their ingenuity is astonishing when they stick to working out solutions instead doing other controversial things. I wish they were like this all round.*
What are so controversial ?
Genocide in Xinjiang as hyped and manufactured by the West or pro- Independence HK rioters !!
If you believe the western lies to poison the minds of innocent viewers and readers, you are the easy target.
It's funny how every natural problem in the world is a solution for another. Im from cali and we would love that rain. I guess its all about adapting and innovating... and renewables.
This is just genius, Jakarta and other megacities struggling w floods and rising sea levels should do like that
Permaculture principles...it works. Well done China.