Shanghai tackles issue of sinking city
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E-mail China Daily, November 22, 2012
The local legislature in Shanghai on Tuesday started to discuss a draft regulation on preventing land subsidence, which aims to better supervise high-speed rail, underground transportation and other major municipal construction projects in the city.
Gan Zhongze, a lawmaker who has been participating in the draft, said that the city has sunk by 29 cm in the past 40 years. "The speed of sinking has slowed down, especially since 2005, but it remains a major hazard for the city," he said.
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Shanghai [file photo] |
Feng Jingming, director of the Shanghai Planning and Land Resources Bureau, said a diminishing water table, combined with a growing number of skyscrapers, is causing Shanghai to sink. The average altitude of Shanghai is only 4 meters above sea level.
The draft regulation stipulates that a monitoring network to measure land subsidence for Shanghai's major municipal projects should join the city's monitoring network for ground setting, and that those major construction organizations should update their day-to-day monitoring data to the Shanghai Planning and Land Resources Administration for better prevention of subsidence.
It also requires construction companies to evaluate land before digging pits of 7 to 15 meters deep, which is considered a deep-foundation ditch. A third party is also needed for evaluation and reporting to the planning and land authority of Shanghai if the foundation is deeper than 15 meters.
Violators could face a fine up to 500,000 yuan ($80,200), according to the draft.
Land subsidence in Shanghai became a real hazard in the 1950s when the city's groundwater resources were extensively exploited for cooling during the summer by Shanghai's newly developed industrial sector.
Li Lin, assistant chief engineer from Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Co, who's currently in charge of a cross-river tunnel that is under construction, said they've been keeping an eye on the land-sinking problem during the progress because "such an issue is fatal and essential for the risk control of the project".
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