Qingdao Petrochemical Area and the Surrounding Region

The planning region is located along the west coast of Jiaozhou Bay. The region has developed petrochemical industry, ships manufacturing and shipping logistics as its economic leading industry. However, the tragic pipeline explosive accident in 2013 raised the public concern on its environmental security. Transformation of economic development model became an urgent request.

The regional planning is based on overall ecological environmental planning. After a thorough study of the ecological evolution process of Jiaozhou Bay and its regional environmental network to position its ecological niche, we set the goal of building ecological network in the connecting region and coastal ecological restoration, and elaborate on ecological corridors, intertidal restoration, brownfield management and rainwater utilization.

Regarding industrial production, we make full use of the historical opportunity of frontal bay upgrading into free trade port and turn it into an engine to boost the development of the west coast area. As the growth of cargo handling capability is expected, traffic problem becomes another urgent issue to solve. We refer to the traffic experience at modern German sea ports, highways and railways organization to solve the hinterland traffic problem, and suggest to apply intelligent transportation mode to enhance the efficiency of the traffic system. In terms of urban space, our planning is nailed at the free trade port, stretching towards the south, the north and the east. The urban center is set by the old town area with one sub-center near the northern Jiaozhou Bay Bridge and one near the southern Jiaozhou Bay Tunnel exit respectively. Such arrangement will improve the city’s overall competence and build a dynamic and characteristic city image. By environmental planning, industry planning, traffic planning and space planning, we are able to develop an ecologically sustainable schematic design which enables Huangdao to transfer from an industrial base with high environmental risk to an ecological sustainable new city.