Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Put together, the Bird's Nest, the hysteria over pollution, and the Olympic
Park show just how ecological images are a central, albeit highly contested
part of the China/Beijing/Olympic story. h e o' cial story by the CCP seeks to
represent Beijing and China as a whole as a clean, green, developed, and
highly organized place. h is national context matters greatly in understand-
ing why and how Shanghai sought to keep up to, and at, the “ecological” cut-
ting edge, primarily through the 2010 World Expo, as discussed in chapter 5.
whither eco-shanghai?
If Beijing is notorious internationally for its haze, with pollution so bad as to
be visible from space and occasionally to shut down airline fl ights, what
precisely are Shanghai's major environmental problems, both real and per-
ceived? As one of the world's largest cities, its sheer size means that it faces a
rather typical set of urban development challenges. h e population density
and growth expectations have major land-use implications. h e major envi-
ronmental issues in Shanghai are related to housing, water and air quality,
and transportation and land-use planning. Due to its soft soil and decades of
groundwater pumping, the city has sunk more than six feet since 1921, a
problem that is not unique to Shanghai but is particularly extreme there.
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Shanghai's low-lying coastal nature is a major vulnerability with sea
level rising because of global warming. According to recent news reports:
“During the past years, the city has suff ered more extreme weather, missed
rain during the normal wet season and seen a temperature hike almost four
times higher than the global level. . . . Because global warming is heating up
the sea, local fi sheries are expected to see their business drop.”
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But the big-
gest risks are silting, fl ooding, and the destruction of wetlands (which used
to protect the city against fl ooding) in order to create more land to support
the city's growth rate through land development and construction.
What is also special about Shanghai, as opposed to a “typical” Chinese
city facing development challenges, is its unique status in China as a
