Integrating Environmental Considerations into the Economic Decision-Making Process
Modalities for environmental assessments
East and Southeast Asia China (Shanghai) Index
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III. ENVIRONMENT MONITORING AND URBAN PLANNING

[ III-A | III-B | III-C | III-D | III-E | III-F | III-G | III-H ]

G. Urban afforestation and environment

[ G | G-1 | G-2 | G-3 | G-4]

4. The development plan for Shanghai's afforestation

According to the computerized models, the green land area in Shanghai will possibly be about 17.08 million sq m, which together with the tridimentional green space derived from reconstructing the old city and planting the pavement trees, gives a potential area of more than 30 million sq m. So the urban green space plan should be designed in conjunction with the urban functional district planning. In order to achieve this aim, one vital measure is to intensify the dissemination, education and enforcement of the law to prevent green land from being encroached upon; another is to add green land through the reconstruction of the old city, tridimentional green space and pavement trees.

The green coverage of Shanghai increased to 16 per cent in 1995 and the average public green land -per capita also increased to 1.65 m2. Shanghai has revised urban general planning in the 1990s in order to construct an international metropolis equipped to face the 21st century and to follow the sustainable development way. The revised planning gave birth to a totally new idea: the construction of a large green belt around the outer city with a width of more than 500 m and a total length of 97 km. This newly added area is about 5,768 hectares, of which more than 4,000 hectares is public green land. By then, the whole area of green land will total 7,241 hectares. Based on an 8.65 million population, by that time the average public green land per capita will have increased to 4.64 sq m, the total area will be 6.67 sq m and the green coverage will be 22.5 per cent. In this way, Shanghai's present backward green coverage situation will have undergone a dramatic and fundamental change.-

Economic development is the basis for environmental construction and a pleasant eco-environment is the best insurance for sustainable economic development. The construction of a city-encompassing green belt will improve the eco-environment of Shanghai, enhance the ability to prevent disaster, and slow down and control the expansion of the city. It will also attract investment, develop green-related industries such as tourism through forest parks, large-sized public green land, vacation resorts and villages, motor-racing tracks, golf courses, etc. and boost income for the benefit of other areas of the economy and national development and prosperity. Besides, such a green belt enhances and beautifies the urban view, provides an opportunity for people to be near to and appreciate nature, and brings about various the social benefits such as edifying the peoples' minds and enhancing their physical and psychological health.

The city-encompassing green belt consists of six parts:

  1. Park land: this part is 1,401 hectares, about 19 per cent of the total, mainly city-level or region-level parks such as large theme parks (for instance the urban friendship park), large green entertainment parks, pastoral vacation areas etc;
  2. Land for sports facilities: this part is 1,630 hectares, about 23 per cent of the total, and could be used for as world-class motor-racing, horse-racing-horse and golf courses, etc;
  3. Municipal/traffic land: this part is 740 hectares, about 10 per cent of the total, and its main purpose is for the construction of municipal and traffic facilities such as an airport, subway, sewage--disposal plant and reservoir, etc;
  4. Land for woods and agricultural production: this part is 2,664 hectares, about 37 per cent of the total, and is mainly used as a protective wood belt to facilitate agriculture, tourist farming, orchards, gardens, cemeteries, etc. It has both sight-seeing and economic value;
  5. Land for low density construction: this part is 411 hectares, about 6%. of the total, and is mainly used as garden resorts and vacation villages. The considerable potential profit from it could be used to construct the whole green belt;

There is also about 395 hectares which has been occupied by other utilities, and is about 5 per cent of the total. In the future, the use of this part must be strictly regulated and it will have to revert to being natural green land in the long run.

The construction of the green belt is planned to be spread over three specific periods: in the first period (1994~1997), completion of the green belt from Hongqiao Airport to Pudong Airport; in the second period (1998~2000), completion of the main large projects such as the theme park, encircling-city park etc. along with the construction of the outer round facilities; in the last period (2001~2010), completion of the total project. Combined with rural construction and transformation of the industrial sectors, the village and rural enterprises and other buildings inside the green belt will gradually move out to continually improve the environmental level of the belt. It is believed that Shanghai in the 21st century will attract more investors and tourists from abroad because of its graceful urban environment.

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