Public Eco-Art as Wastewater Treatment: The Living Water Garden in China
Public Eco-Art as Wastewater Treatment: The Living Water Garden in China
Abstract:
Designed in 1996 by American eco-artist Betsy Damon and landscape architect, Margie Ruddick, The Living Water Garden is a six acre park on the Funan River, in Chengdu, China, a city of 15 million people. Not only is the park a fully functioning water treatment plant, but it is also a giant sculpture in the shape of a fish that contains a multitude of smaller sculptures, a living environmental education center, a refuge for wildlife and plants, and a wonderful place for people.
Dr. Xuehua Zhang, a Professor at Sichuan University, who was involved with the implementation of the project 20 years ago will talk about the power of innovation and cooperation in bringing a once dead river alive again.
Bio of the speaker
Xuehua Zhang is Professor of Environmental Policy at the Institute of New Energy and Low Carbon Technology, Sichuan University of China. Her area of research interests is environmental policy-making, enforcement and compliance, coordinated pollution control, low carbon rural development, public participation and environmental legal institutions.
She received her PhD from Emmet Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University with a focus on environmental law, institutions, and economics. Before that, she was a policy analyst at Resources for the Future, a prominent environmental economics think-tank in Washington DC. She has contributed to the international policy community and its understanding about the actual functions and operations of China’s environmental regulatory system, by providing consulting services to several governments and international organizations.
Currently, she is leading an effort to establish a project that incorporates industrial and agricultural pollution control and ecological farming to explore innovative approaches for protecting the drinking water source area in Chengdu, China.