Exploring integrated design guidelines for urban wetland parks in China

Despite the growing number of Urban Wetland Parks (UWPs) established in China, little scientific understanding exists regarding the most suitable design strategies and their respective benefits for nature and people. This paper aims to develop a framework of integrated design guidelines for Chinese UWPs which combines ecological issues and open space use. Our research design includes a literature review on UWP challenges, the development of a framework of design guidelines based on document analyses and 22 illustrative UWP case studies as well as an in-depth evaluation of six Chinese UWP cases. We have identified 13 key UWP challenges, for example for maintaining biodiversity. Our framework of guidelines consists of 17 integrated design strategies such as ‘increasing floodplain space’, which are operationalised by 57 design measures. The case study evaluation reveals that the positive effects of selected design measures are largely confirmed for six Chinese parks in terms of ecological and open space use issues.