Sustainable Stormwater Management for Different Types of Water-Scarce Cities: Environmental Policy Effect of Sponge City Projects in China

Abstract

With high-speed urbanization, ecological space is seriously shrinking, and lagging drainage facilities contradict the ecological needs of citizens. In particular, water-scarce cities are faced with frequent stormwater disasters, such as excessive accumulation of rainwater, peak runoff and water pollution, which threaten the safety of the urban water ecological environment. This paper combined the actual construction content of the sponge city project with a whole process policy evaluation framework to examine whether the projects solve these problems and to find different approaches to the results. Utilizing entropy fuzzy comprehensive evaluation provides a systematic standard for the evaluation system. The research shows that the sponge city project can achieve a good governance effect, including constructing a suitable scheme for urban hydrological characteristics, effectively improving the rainwater treatment level of different types of water-scarce cities, and alleviating the ecological contradiction of urban water environment. The stages of policy formulation, policy implementation and policy results achieve a good degree of completion. On one hand, sponge city projects transform the infrastructure at key locations, aiming at improving the rainwater interception capacity of the streets; on the other hand, restoring original natural waters improves the capacity of water conservation and forms a sustainable ecosystem between the city and nature.