Abstract
Rapid development in East Asian cities over past decades has not only brought a wealth and economic boom but also has caused various environmental problems, one of which is the urban heat island effect and related dust and haze. This chapter focuses on an urban-cooling governance with a focus on building an urban ventilation corridor project in Wuhan, a well-known ‘stove city’ in China suffering high temperature during summer. The pioneer project in Wuhan aims to cool the urban temperature by institutionally creating a pathway of wind through the city-level master plan. Wuhan also has the knowledge network of the plan of ventilation corridors, given that the Huazhong University of Science and Technology based in Wuhan is one of the leading research nodes of the urban ventilation corridors with interacting overseas research institutes to transfer related knowledge to other Chinese cities. Research questions for this chapter include: what is the social and political process of the weather governance, including the establishment of urban ventilation corridors and implementation of rain enhancement? What stakeholders and professional communities should be mobilised? And how is meteorological knowledge produced and institutionalised to be used on the cooling issue? We argue that the case of Wuhan represents a specific way that the Chinese state attempts to mitigate environmental problems by integrating and implementing new meteorological technologies and services. While new technologies and a powerful state together enable the implementation of weather governance to influence the nature system more than ever before, the huge influence also brings about unpredictable results environmentally and socially.
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Notes
- 1.
News source: Beijing and other cities plans to introduce wind ventilation corridors to curb PM 2.5 (Ch. Beijing deng duoge chengshi niguihua ‘chengshi fengdao’ shusan PM2.5). https://read01.com/7B04Jz.html, accessed 31 December 2016; and Effectiveness of multiple cities planning for ventilation corridors to curb smog needs further reviews (Ch. duochengshi mouhua ‘chengshi fengdao’ zhimai xiaoguo daigu) http://www.1000plan.org/qrjh/article/56856, accessed 30 November 2016.
- 2.
Building coverage ratio and floor-area ratio , two indicators for the land use area of buildings and volume and height of buildings, are a zoning guidance to prevent tall buildings from obstructing too much light and air.
- 3.
News source: Urban ventilation corridors: wind passing through the city [chengshi fengdao chuanchengfeng nengfou chuisan zhongguo de wumai], http://www.storm.mg/article/97745, accessed 31 December 2016.
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Hong, DL., Chien, SS. (2018). ‘Summoning’ Wind for Urban Cooling: Urban Wind Corridor Projects in China. In: Cheshmehzangi, A., Butters, C. (eds) Designing Cooler Cities. Palgrave Series in Asia and Pacific Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6638-2_10
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