Study On The Hydro-environment And The Urban Development Of Guangzhou During Ming And Qing Dynasties

Guangzhou is located on the verge of the South China Sea and in the Pearl RiverDelta hinterland. It has a long history of more than2000years. Guangzhou has alwaysbeen the political center, economic center and cultural center of South China and animportant commercial and trade port since it was built in Qin Dynasty. The specialgeographical location and long-term culture accumulation make Guangzhou possessvery strong local characteristics.Guangzhou city had been prosperous and dynamic in Ming and Qing Dynasty. Inthis period, there are water systems inside and outside Guangzhou city. It is a typicalresearch that studying on the interactive relationship between development ofGuangzhou city and its drainage environment. Basing on the focus of urban form, thispaper applies the theory and method of historical geography, data statistics, map andtext interpretation and other research methods to study the evolution process ofGuangzhou city from the perspective of urban drainage environment. This paper, onone hand, summarizes the historical law of the interactive relationship between thedevelopment of Guangzhou city and its drainage environment. On the other hand, itreveals the value of drainage environment in the development process of a city, andreappears the local characteristics of water town of the ancient Guangzhou.This paper firstly sorts research literatures and drawings which are aboutdevelopment of Guangzhou and transition of the drainage environment aroundGuangzhou city during historical period that from Han Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty.Then it sorts out the historical context and interrelation between the evolution ofGuangzhou city and the drainage environment transition before Ming Dynasty. Andthen discusses the interactive relationship between development of Guangzhou and itsdrainage environment in Ming and Qing Dynasty from macro to micro level. This isthe most important part of this paper. Firstly, sorting and summarizing the structuretransition of Guangzhou city and the drainage environment around it during thisperiod. And then, specifically discuss the content and ways of interactive influencethat comes from the both from two aspects that “water affects city” and “city affectswater”. On the basis of the research before, this paper finally generalizes theconclusion of this paper. One conclusion is the historical law of the interactionbetween development of Guangzhou city and its drainage environment. The other oneis summarizing the value of drainage environment in the development process ofGuangzhou.