Resilience through aqua-agriculture transformation

Abstract

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is a river dominated floodplain in southeast China. Long known as one of the country’s richest agricultural regions, in recent years it has also become known as one of the world’s most densely urbanized areas. Decreasing space for water through dyke-ring construction, channelization and urbanization has led to increased flood risk from the river, rain, and the sea. To protect residents from flood risk, a more adaptive urbanization strategy is required, one that takes account of ecological agriculture (e.g. the traditional dyke-pond system) as well as historical water-management methods, which uses a multi-scalar approach. The objective of this thesis is to identify landscape architecture principles for multiscale water sensitive design based on traditional agri-aquacultural practice in this region. In Shunde district, a flood prone lowland located between the West and North rivers in the PRD, there is a century-old tradition in working with water via integrated agri-aquaculture systems. By learning from traditional agri-aquacultural practices, new design principles can be developed to mitigate flood risk while allowing for increased but sustainable urbanization, not just for the Shunde district, but also for the Pearl River Delta, so that they can be more resilient to flood risk in the future. Finally, an article called "Learning from Agri-Aquaculture for Multiscale Water-Sensitive Design in the Pearl River Delta" is also written by the author and Steffen Nijhuis and Gregory Bracken about principles and application through study.