The Red Ribbon Tanghe River Park: Reconciling water management, Landscape Design and Ecology

摘要

To understand the current designs of riverbanks and water-based landscape design in China, one has to take a closer look at China's general water situation and the tradition of water management. The distribution of water in China is highly unbalanced- both geographically and seasonally. The results are frequent droughts in the north and floods in the south. Although China possesses an abundance of water, per capita it has less than one fourth of the world's average at its disposal. Due to these unfavourable conditions, the regulation and distribution of water has challenged Chinese people for thousands of years. Even in Chinese mythology, the origins of civilization are closely linked to the regulation of water. Going back to the Xia Dynasty (21-17 BC) the prominent position of Yu as a controller of water shows the early integration of water control with national leadership.