The Performance of the Construction of a Water Ecological Civilization City: International Assessment and Comparison

The water ecological environment problems brought about by rapid urbanization have prompted the proposal and implementation of different approaches to urban water ecological construction, such as eco-cities, best management practices (BMPs), and low-impact development (LID). As one of the most representative urban water ecological management policies in China, the Water Ecological Civilization City (WECC) was proposed in 2013, and 105 cities were selected for pilot construction. Many studies have evaluated the effectiveness of WECC construction, but international quantitative comparison is lacking. To address this, an urban Water-Human-Health (WHH) Assessment Model, considering water resources, ecological environment, economic and social development level, and water resources utilization, was developed and applied to five WECC pilot cities in China and 10 other cities worldwide, in which mainstream urban water ecological construction modes have been used. Principal component analysis of the index values in the assessment system was used to evaluate the current status of water ecosystem health in the 15 cities, showing that Sydney, Cleveland, and Hamburg were the most advanced in urban water ecological management. The two cities with the best evaluation results (Sydney and Cleveland), and the WECC city with the highest score (Wuhan) were selected for documentary analysis of their water ecological construction documents to identify similarities and differences to inform best practice internationally for urban water ecological construction. The results showed that Sydney and Cleveland attach similar emphasis across most constituents of urban water ecological construction, while, for Wuhan, greater importance is attached to water resource management and water culture. The advantages and disadvantages of WECC construction and international experience are discussed. The WHH assessment model proposed in this study provides a new quantitative evaluation method for international urban water ecological health evaluation, which could be further improved by including an urban flood risk indicator.