ASLA：俞孔坚教授指出“水是气候行动的关键”

2025年2月10日，ASLA Dirt栏目发布专题报道《俞孔坚：水是气候行动的关键》，旨在分享北京大学建筑与景观设计学院院长，美国艺术与科学院院士俞孔坚教授及其合作者在《Nature Water》期刊发表的研究论文《To Solve Climate Change, We Need to Restore Our Sponge Planet》中的观点——“水是气候行动的关键”。基于其团队对近千个生态工程实践及其绩效的观察，指出当前以“碳”为中心的减缓行动、灰色基础设施主导的适应策略忽视了水生态系统在全球气候变化中的关键影响。而“海绵星球”则可以通过源头消纳滞蓄，过程减速消能和末端弹性适应的三大核心原则，从而实现地球的气候韧性。南昌鱼尾洲湿地公园、天津桥园公园、三亚红树林生态公园、海口美舍河凤翔公园等海绵城市项目验证了湿地和红树林等水生态系统的固碳效率超过陆地森林。俞孔坚指出，唯有将水循环修复置于气候行动核心，构建“海绵星球”，才能协同应对洪涝、极端高温、生物多样性丧失等危机，实现人类与自然的共生。此外，俞孔坚教授还呼吁景观设计师在项目中优先湿地修复、洪泛区保护等自然方案，并通过科学出版和政策倡导，推动行业从“美学导向”转向“科学战略工具”的定位。

以下为英文全文：

We can’t forget the central role of water in climate action, argues landscape architect Kongjian Yu, FASLA, founder of Turenscape, in a new research paper published in Nature Water. “Climate action must prioritize water—restoring the natural water cycle is just as critical as reducing carbon.”

Yu, along with co-authors Erica Gies, author of Water Always Wins: Thriving in an age of drought and deluge, and Warren W. Wood, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Michigan State University, argue that “getting off fossil fuels is undeniably a critical step in slowing climate change. But even if we did that tomorrow, it would not be enough.”

“Agriculture, forestry, grazing, mining, and building have degraded 75 percent of land on Earth, significantly altering the water cycle. That’s a problem because a healthy water cycle plays a key role in stabilizing the climate.”

They found that the conventional approach to development has “drained or filled as much as 87 percent of the world’s wetlands and dammed and diverted two-thirds of the world’s large rivers.” Since 1992, our encroachment into floodplains has “paved an area the size of Ukraine.”

For Yu, the answer to these global challenges are new infrastructure projects that “protect, restore, or mimic natural slow water systems.” These projects can mimic the natural water functions of wetlands, floodplains, mountains, meadows, and forests. In other words, Sponge Planet.

Retaining water through the landscape. ASLA 2010 Professional General Design Honor Award. Tianjin Qiaoyuan Park: The Adaptation Palettes. Tianjin City, China © Turenscape and Peking University Graduate School of Landscape Architecture / Cao Yang

Yu has been the world’s leading advocate of the Sponge City and now Sponge Planet approach. The model has three key principles:

• Absorb rainfall where it falls

• Restore water’s natural slow phases

• Adapt communities to accept more slow water on the land

Sponge Planet is part of a global “slow water movement,” which includes thousands of projects worldwide in urban, suburban, and rural areas that mimic natural systems. Together these projects are increasing “infiltration into soils, hyporheic zones, and aquifers,” and solving water, climate, biodiversity, and heath issues at the same time.

Slowing down water flow. Haikou Meishe River Greenway, Hainan, China. 2017. © Turenscape

“Climate action has focused too narrowly on carbon while neglecting the destabilized water cycle. Sponge City addresses urban flooding, extreme heat, wildfires, and biodiversity loss, but the crisis demands a planetary-scale response — Sponge Planet,” Yu told us. “We must restore Earth’s ability to absorb, store, and slowly release water — making water management the foundation of a holistic climate solution, not an afterthought or a single-goal intervention.”

Yu and his co-authors argue that Sponge Planet approaches reduce climate risks while also storing carbon and increasing biodiversity. “In absorbing high flows, Sponge Planet reduces upstream and downstream flood risk. In recharging groundwater and storing it locally, it increases the water released into streams during the dry season. Sponge Planet is also climate mitigation because ecosystems such as wetlands and mangroves store carbon at rates higher than many terrestrial forests.”

Slowing down water flow, storing carbon, and increasing biodiversity. ASLA 2014 Professional General Design Honor Award. Liupanshui Minghu Wetland Park, Guizhou Province, China. © Turenscape

Yu has been on the road, presenting 30 keynotes in two years. He was a speaker at the Vatican’s summit on climate resilience last year and is planning a Climate Design Summit in Beijing, China this October. Much of this public engagement and advocacy work is associated with the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize he received from the Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF).

Part of his campaign is to publish research in science journals like Nature Water. “Landscape architecture is a small profession and widely misunderstood. We must make the scientific and engineering communities aware that landscape architecture is not just about aesthetics or leisure—despite common misconceptions—but a scientific and a strategic tool for global climate action.”

“We need to highlight that widely discussed solutions like nature-based solutions have long been at the core of our discipline. Publishing in scientific journals legitimizes landscape-based, water-driven solutions and ensures they influence policy and practice. It shifts the conversation from engineered, gray infrastructure to integrated, nature-based resilience, redefining our profession as an essential force in climate adaptation and survival.”

Slowing down water flow. Haikou Meishe River Greenway, Hainan, China. 2017. © Turenscape

Yu has been explaining the inadequacies of purely gray infrastructure for decades. In Nature Water, he and his co-authors sum up that argument: “Many decision-makers call for bigger, stronger infrastructure. But that ‘gray’ infrastructure — aqueducts, dams, and levees aimed at controlling water — is part of the problem.”

“That’s because engineered approaches to water management often focus on solving a single problem at a time. Worried about flooding? Build a wall. Does water scarcity loom? Build a dam and pipeline to bring in more from somewhere else. But such singular focus ignores and damages complex natural systems and their inhabitants who keep them functioning.”

Gray infrastructure produces significant greenhouse gas emissions: “Inflexible and brittle, gray infrastructure requires ongoing maintenance and causes more carbon emissions due to the use of concrete and the destruction of natural ecosystems that store carbon.” And these water systems create new inequities: “Over 40 years, dams brought water to 20 percent of the world’s population but decreased water to 24 percent of the population.”

He thinks all landscape architects can do their part to move communities away from centralized gray infrastructure and towards decentralized, community-based green infrastructure and nature-based solutions.

“Shift the mindset—reject gray infrastructure as the default and advocate for landscape-based, water-driven solutions. Prioritize wetland restoration, floodplain protection, and nature-based urban water systems in every project. Push for policies that recognize landscape architecture as an essential discipline in climate action. Every intervention, however small, should contribute to a Sponge Planet: retaining water at its source, slowing down water flow, and embracing water at its sink.”

Embracing sea level rise. ASLA 2020 Professional General Design Honor Award. Deep Form of Designed Nature: Sanya Mangrove Park. Sanya City, Hainan Province, China. © Turenscape

Calculating the economic benefits of these projects is also important: “Measuring the value of these projects’ multiple benefits – and tallying the harm caused by traditional gray infrastructure — can show the cost-effectiveness of such investments.”

原文链接：https://dirt.asla.org/

作者：Jared Green