Research On Problems Of Rainwater Drainage And Utilization In Beijing

Rainwater drainage and utilization system as a part of infrastructure for disposingrainwater plays a vital role in daily life of urban areas. To some extent, how it is operateddeeply impacts city-dwellers’ happiness and welfare. However, many problems exist in thesystem of Beijing, which are revealed by disasters produced by extremely heavydownpours. In recent years, Beijing has had more falls of extremely heavy rain which isinfluenced by changes in rainfall intensity and distribution caused by fluctuations of climate.But its poor rainwater drainage and utilization system can not meet the requirement ofdraining, which leads to it waterlogged and causes many casualties and economical lose.Therefore, studies on how to improve it become indispensable. This paper is an attempt ofsuch studies. The author of the paper held that further improvements for the rainwaterdrainage and utilization system in Beijing should be done in two dimensions: developmentplan and operating management. To be specific, in this thesis, through applying thestakeholder management theory to analyze the problems existing in the Beijing’smanagement system of rainwater drainage and utilization, the correspondent adjustingstrategies were discussed and by using theories about city’s construction plan, the lowimpact development (LID) plan is suggested as a strategy to solve the problems existing inthe rainwater drainage and utilization system in Beijing according to its present conditions.At first, through analyzing the problems existing in the rainwater drainage andutilization system of Beijing city, it is indicated in the paper that draining sluggishly,utilizing ineffectively and separating the two are the biggest problems. As to their causes,stratification analysis was used. In the thesis, the causes were divided into possible,plausible and actionable causes in order to select from a wide range the causes feasible tooperate and conducive to the improvements and take them as the focus to improve thesystem of Beijing. In this study, actionable causes could be concluded into two: planningand management system. These two closely related causes, as factors impacting the plan forthe improvements and the management in operating the rainwater drainage and utilizationsystem, are the most important variables which lay restraints on solving the problems withrainwater in Beijing.Further more, separate planning strategies for rainwater drainage and utilization wereproposed for population areas, parks and greenery, roads and streets in urban areas andother public areas in Beijing, depending on the planning ideal of rainwater management andzoned program and operating concept of LID. Because of a close relation between planningand implementing, five guarantee mechanisms for fulfilling the plan were expounded from both macro and micro perspectives. They are the guarantee mechanism of policies andregulations, publicizing and education, financing, economically incentives andresponsibility assessment.Thirdly, based on the analysis of the Beijing’s management system of rainwaterdrainage and utilization, the characteristics of each stakeholder and the interest relationshipamong them are elaborated and it shows that the existing management system has scatteredand divided feature which would lead to tremendous difficulties in coordination andexecution. By learning from experiences of other countries in this aspect, it is suggested inthe paper that the Beijing’s management system of rainwater drainage and utilizationshould be reshaped through adjusting organization structure. All in all, through the analysisof the rainwater drainage and utilization problems of Beijing, the thesis comes to threeconclusions:1) the systemic analysis of the problems of the rainwater drainage andutilization system of Beijing and their causes is the prerequisite to get a solution;2) theestablishment of a centralized rainwater management system could greatly increase theeffectiveness to improve the rainwater drainage and utilization system of Beijing and layfoundation to solve the problems with rainwater drainage and utilization; and3) to zone theurban area and promote the low impact development (LID) planning strategy to improvethe rainwater drainage and utilization system is the fundamental solution for the rainwaterproblems in Beijing.