Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-6 (section)

=== Case Study 6.3: Institutional Innovation to Improve Urban Resilience: Xi’xian New Area in China ===

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Located in Northwest China and the Silk Road Economic Belt, Xi’Xian covers a total of 882 km 2 of the border zone of two cities of Xi’an and Xianyang, Shaanxi province. Xi”xian accommodates a registered population of 1.06 million, with a planned area of 272 km 2 reserved for urban development. As a new engine for promoting the West Development Strategy and people-centred urbanisation in the northwest China, Xi’xian has paved the way for China’s ecological city agenda since January 2014.

Xi’xian aimed to build a ‘modern garden city’ when it was selected as national demonstration sites for Sponge City (SC) during 2015–2018 and Climate Resilient City (CRC) during 2017–2020. Under the changing climate, the old cities of Xi’xian suffers urban heat island, drying and water scarcity, heavy rains and waterlogging, thunderstorms and so on, which bring adverse effects to transportation, construction, cultural relics tourism resources and other industries (Ma, Yan and Zeyu, 2021). SC status requires innovation to reduce flood risk through design to absorb, store and purify rainfall and storm water in an ecologically friendly way that reduces dangerous and polluted runoff. When required, the stored water is released and added to the urban water supply ( [[#MoHURD--2014|MoHURD, 2014]] ). As a CRC, the aim is to adapt to climate risk and environmental change by integrating climate resilience into urban renewal and revitalisation.

In practice, building ecological cities in China has primarily focused on hard measures ( [[#Li--2020|Li et al., 2020]] ). Key areas of development include stakeholder engagement and horizontal coordination ( [[#Li--2016|Li et al., 2016]] ). Among one of 19 national-level New Areas in China, Xi’xian enjoys special preferential policies in the fields of fiscal autonomy, investment and tax policy, and permission in land utility for industrial development purpose. These policy freedoms allow Xi’Xian to explore adaptation options. This has opened engagement with business through an urban construction investment group sponsored and invested in jointly by Xi’Xian Management Committee (administrative authority) and local enterprises ( [[#Wei--2018|Wei and Zhao, 2018]] ). Second, the municipal government has simplified administrative systems to reduce the project waiting period from evaluation to approval to 50 d. Third, a green financial mechanism creates a leverage effect for national funding, including the first provincial Green Sponge Development Fund (RMB 1.2 billion) and in Shaanxi, special funding from the Urbanization Development Fund (RMB 2.64 billion). Furthermore, a public–private partnership model with a whole-lifecycle-management approach has been introduced, raising funding of RMB 1.24 billion with a packaged project including public pipelines and sewage water treatment facilities.

Such institutional and financial support have allowed Xi’xian to implement a Pilot Construction Plan and Three-year Action Plan for Adapting to Climate Change . In 2020, Xixian formed an urban ecology system including 21 m 2 of green space per capita. The old cities’ underground drainage pipe network has been replaced by sponge designs such as green corridors, grass ditches, water storage gardens and recessed green spaces. The 10 waterlogging prone points in Xi’xian New Area have been eliminated and the green area has alleviated urban heat, with average temperature about 1°C lower than the neighbouring densely populated mega-cities of Xi’an and Xianyang. Groundwater in the New Area has also risen by 3.43 m compared with 2015.

At the end of 2020, Xi’xian New Area has built 2.4 million m 2 of modern garden cities, more than 50 km of sponge roads, 1.4 million m 2 of resilient park green space and established a green coverage of more than 50% of the urban space. The target of becoming a green city in which everyone can ‘see green in 100 meters, step into garden every 300 meter’ has been realised ( [[#Ma--2021|Ma et al., 2021]] ). The urban parks and green spaces play a role in regulating local microclimate and also improve the urban environmental amenities for residents. In a comprehensive performance assessment for the Climate Resilient Cities facilitated by the Climate Change Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), the Xi’xian ranked number 9 among all of the 28 pilot cities.

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