Binzhou is a prefecture-level city in northern Shandong Province of China. 20 years ago, this place is nothing but a large alkaline land. 20 years later, it became a significant and beautiful city like this:
On this semester break, I went back to China to visit a relative, who happened to be the Mayor of this city. He showed me around the city and told me the planning history of it. During the last couple of decades, the government took actions such as pushing forward the work of planting trees and grass, reclaiming land from the sea, treating soil erosion and establishing ecological agriculture, to transform the city a more liverable and sustainable place.
Among all of these, the most significant project of the city is that,the government built about 17 man-made lakes within the new city zone and a round-the- city river system(Binzhou is located at the downstream of the Yellow River and has large amount of underground water). Combined with the past evidence of zeron flow of Huang River and its very salty soil condition and my observation, I think that this project is not only promote the amenity of the city, but also increase the flood protection capacity of it and improve the quality of the on and underground water. This city is still on developing now, and presumably there will be more people coming to this new area in the future. This river project will effectively alleviate the potential water stress to provide enough water resource for the new and existing residents. All of these large projects are undertaken on the alkaline land therefore there is no such problem as occupying the cultivated land.
Binzhou on wikipedia :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binzhou
Yiwei (Lydia) Zou 1005356
