【What's Up! JSU #03】Sponge Campus Will Make Say "WOW"

WONDER WHAT ARE THOSE MASSIVE CONSTRUCTION WORKS ON OUR CAMPUS RECENTLY?

JSU's Sponge Campus is Getting Ready!

Prevents flooding

Stores rain water

Minimizes water pollution

Beautiful Environment

The idea of sponge city emerged in the west, but now China has started installing this effective way of collecting rain water. Jiangsu University is now part of this revolutionary movement. It means that our campus has good ‘elasticity’ facing the environmental changes and natural disasters. ‘Water elastic Campus’ is another name for this programme. This will help save water when it overflows, store it for later use in times of scarcity. The best part of this system is the least space consumption with beautification of the surroundings. 

Flooding during heavy rains is common in most countries; sometimes, even a well planned drainage system cannot handle the heavy rain and natural disasters.

This kind of water distributive system has three main parts. 

First, the urban gardens will contain pools and meadows which help collect rain water and also to replenish the underground water table by encouraging the trees and plants to hold the water. This can also help in high precipitation, as more trees mean more humidity. 

Second, the buildings in sponge cities collect water, recycle it and save it in underground reservoirs or tanks. 

Third, the sponge communities will have sponge buildings and urban gardens with meadows and pools which can directly save the water along with the sponge buildings. The muddy water flows down the ground where the trees hold the mud and purifies the water. The mud held by the roots of the trees is one of the best nutrient source for other kind of cultivation. 

On the 22th of December 2016, the Jiangsu University held a Sponge campus construction conference. The vice President--Jijian Zhang made a speech for us where the host, Qingguo Gao and many administrations, research institutions and academies attended the meeting. Jijian zhang stressed that the school had set up a ‘Sponge campus construction’ group to handle this situation. The workload was heavy, so all the teachers and students should support complete this construction together. It would really have a positive impact on the development of our university.

Reasons for Jiangsu University starting ‘Sponge campus construction’

1.Carrying out national ecological civilization construction, building up a ‘Beautiful China’ and construct a‘strong, rich, beautiful, civilized’ new Jiangsu.

2.Three functions of higher education are personal training, technology innovation, and community service which lead the trend of social development . The construction of sponge campus will play a heading role among the planning construction of national universities.

3.The complement of ‘Sponge campus construction’ will bring us a more beautiful and relaxing school environment. This action will reduce the impact of heavy rains on school facilities, minimize water pollution, and provide a more comfortable living space for all the members in the school.

4. Most of the underground water pipe networks have a long history. Maintenance cost and leakage rate are increasing ,besides that the quality of water is also a huge task which confused us. So, a better solution is to encourage the sponge campus programme as well as to reconstruct the  underground water system.

Design pictures of the of ‘Sponge campus’

The project is expected to complete in the second half of 2017