Affiliations: SKLEAC, Research Center for Eco-Environmental
Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China | TEDA Waterworks Co., Tianjin 300457, China
Abstract: The degradation of water source environment becomes serious problems
accompanying with rapid urbanization in China. Ecological engineering provides
ecologically sound and cost-effective solution to solving this problem. As a
case study, a 15 hm^2 ecological water storage basin for a
water plant was designed and constructed on the TEDA area in Tianjin City.
Located on saline, the construction of this project has to face serious
difficulties, such as high salinity, scarce seed banks of macrophytes, and
strong winds. Freshwater replacement, soil emendation and macrophytes planting
at the basinshore, wooden water breaker and plastic membrane installation and
other measures were conducted for the assistance of plant community
establishment. The result showed that the chloride concentration in the basin
water decreased from 11600 mg/L to less than 100 mg/L, and the chloride content
in the basin sediment decreased from 2.1% to 0.35% after freshwater soaking.
The introduced macrophytes of 8 species all survived and 11 other macrophytes
species were occurred in the basin. A new ecosystem was created with increased
biological diversity in the original saline, and the water quality was
improved. This ecological water storage basin also provided a pleasing
landscape for local people.
Keywords: drinking water source, water quality, coastal saline, urban, ecological engineering
