University of Lisbon Institute of Social Sciences

University of Lisbon
Institute of Social Sciences
Transforming Urban Green Space Governance in China

under Ecological Civilisation - An Institutional Analysis
Jieling Liu
Supervised by:
Prof. Dr. Franz Gatzweiler, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Prof. Dr. Olivia Bina, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon
This thesis is specifically developed for obtaining the doctoral degree in Climate Change and
Sustainable Development Policies, specialty in Geography and Planning
2022
Urban Green Space Governance in China - Institutional Analysis
University of Lisbon
Institute of Social Sciences
Transforming Urban Green Space Governance in China

under Ecological Civilisation - An Institutional Analysis
Jieling Liu
Supervised by:
Prof. Dr. Franz Gatzweiler, Institute of Urban Environment – Chinese Academy of Sciences
Prof. Dr. Olivia Bina, Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon
This thesis is specifically developed for obtaining the doctoral degree in Climate Change and Sustainable
Development Policies, specialty in Geography and Planning
President of the Jury:

Dr. Ana Margarida de Seabra Nunes de Almeida, Coordinating Researcher and President of the Scientific
Council of the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon
Members of the Jury:

Dr. Andreas Thiel, Researcher, International Agricultural Policy and Environmental Governance, University of
Kassel, Germany
Dr. José Antônio Puppim de Oliveira, Professor, São Paulo School of Business Administration at Fundação
Getúlio Vargas, Brazil
Dr. Franz Gatzweiler, Professor, Institute of Urban Environment – Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Dr. Rui Jorge Fernandes Ferreira dos Santos, full professor, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Nova
University Lisbon, Portugal
Dr. Margarida Maria de Araújo Abreu Vilar de Queirós do Vale, Associate Professor, Institute of Geography
and Spatial Planning, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Dr. Maria Luísa de Carvalho de Albuquerque Schmidt, Principal Researcher, Institute of Social Sciences,
University of Lisbon, Portugal
Funded by the Portuguese National Foundation for Science and Technology

(Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, FCT)
2022
2
Abstract
Facing expeditious urbanisation and climate change impacts, how has China governed urban
green spaces? This thesis establishes urban green spaces as an essential part of urban social-
ecological systems critical for overall stability, including climate resilience, health and
wellbeing. This thesis turns to the common-pool resource theory to understand urban green
space governance. The theoretical framework convenes that non-excludable but highly
subtractable goods can be governed more sustainably in small scales and through collectively
designed rules by actors that contain well-defined property rights, monitoring, and sanctions
appropriate to respective levels and scales. The thesis selects three empirical cases and uses the
Institutional Analysis Development framework to structure a case study-based qualitative
content analysis and a Multi-Criteria Assessment informed by in-depth interviews and urban
green space policies and plans.
This research finds that land property rights are critical factors for participation in urban green
space governance, and urban green spaces in China are still governed primarily as land
resources. Conceptualising urban green spaces as common-pool resources reveals that they
should contain property rights different from urban land resources for more sustainable
governance. Besides, China's urban green space governance has gradually formalised
ecological functions, including the potential to cope with climate change, into institutional
arrangements in the past two decades and is mostly in line with the common characteristics of
successful common-pool resource governance regimes. China's urban green space governance
can be improved by striking a better equivalence between benefits and costs for all actors and
broaden the extent of collective-choice arrangements. Furthermore, Guangzhou's urban green
space governance attunes with the national environmental governance framework Ecological
Civilisation through conducting both the means and ends of institutional change. Finally,
despite substantial progress under Ecological Civilisation, three main institutional barriers
remained in Guangzhou's urban green space governance: the lack of legal foundations for
regular ecological status assessments, low awareness of local state actors on climate change
impacts and the ecological potential of urban green spaces, and the lack of long-term
commitment for a more ecosystem-based approach to urban green space governance.
The findings indicate that urban green spaces as essential part of the complex urban social-
ecological system should not be governed simply as land resources. To attach importance to
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the ecosystem services and ecological values, it is necessary to define an exclusive and clear
set of property rights for urban green spaces. The common-pool resource theory also tells us
that institutional arrangements for long-term sustainable resource governance should enable
individual and collective actors to participate in the process thoroughly and achieve the end
goals, such as good health, wellbeing, and climate resilience. This research helps policymakers
in Chinese cities understand why some urban green space governance in the past failed even
with great technical planning expertise. Besides, it provides policymakers with practical
suggestions on institutional arrangements helpful to promote urban green space governance
and to achieve Ecological Civilisation. Finally, the researcher presents several
recommendations for policymakers for better practices in the future and future research
directions.
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Keywords
Urban green spaces, climate adaptation, urban health and wellbeing, governance, institutional
change, common-pool resource, property rights, transaction costs, sustainable urban
development, Ecological Civilisation
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Resumo (em português)
Enfrentado pela urbanização acelerada e pelos impactos das alterações climáticas, como a
China governou os espaços verdes urbanos? Os espaços verdes urbanos são um ponto de
entrada em que as ações e os resultados são importantes para a saúde e o bem-estar de todos os
cidadãos urbanos e a resiliência climática independentemente dos contextos sociais,
econômicos e políticos. A China tem uma enorme responsabilidade e potencial devido às
escalas da sua economia, a população e a pegada de carbono total e tem visto uma forte
determinação política para agir nos desafios climáticos e ambientais enquanto as constantes
necessidades de urbanização e desenvolvimento econômico. Então, como é que as cidades
chinesas abordaram o planeamento e a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos? Que
facilitações ou desafios institucionais enfrentaram ao planear espaços verdes urbanos? Como
é que os governos locais conseguiram melhorar os espaços verdes urbanos e implementar mais
Nature-based solutions? Quais são as boas práticas a serem partilhadas? Além disso, por quê
alguns desafios persistiram, apesar do sistema de governo centralizado e a forte determinação
política? Esta tese propõe-se a estudar três casos sobre o planeamento e a governança dos
espaços verdes urbanos em Guangzhou, uma cidade costeira altamente populosa, compacta e
vulnerável no sudeste da China. Os objetivos eram compreender as dinâmicas institucionais,
os facilitadores e as barreiras subjacentes que podem infetar o planeamento e a governança dos
espaços verdes urbanos, examinar a extensão e as abordagens para melhorar os espaços verdes
urbanos, analisar os custos e benefícios levados em consideração e, compreender as barreiras
institucionais relacionadas ao valores intrínsecos, o que é essencial para desenhar soluções
mais genuinamente baseadas na Natureza e do ecossistema.
Com base nos insights da revisão da literatura das teorias e práticas chinesas e ocidentais de
planeamento urbano, e da governança urbana da perspectiva institucional, esta tese estabelece
os espaços verdes urbanos como uma parte essencial dos sistemas socioecológicos urbanos
(urban social-ecological systems, ou urban SES) essenciais para a estabilidade geral, incluindo
a resiliência climática, a saúde e o bem-estar, e vira-se para a teoria de recursos comuns
(common-pool resource), o qual foi desenvolvida pela cientista política norte-americana Elinor
Ostrom, para compreender a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos. A estrutura teórica
convoca que, os bens não excludentes, mas altamente subtraíveis, podem ser governados de
forma mais sustentável em pequenas escalas e por meio de regras projetadas coletivamente
6
com os direitos de propriedade bem definidos, os mecanismos de monitorização e sanção

apropriados aos respectivos níveis e escalas. Foi selecionado três casos empíricos de estudo e
utilizado a ferramenta de Institutional Analysis Development (IAD) framework para estruturar
uma análise de conteúdo qualitativo e uma Avaliação Multi-Critérios informadas pelas
entrevistas em profundidade e políticas e planos de espaços verdes urbanos.
Esta pesquisa mostra que os direitos de propriedade de solo são fatores críticos para a
participação na governança dos espaços verdes urbanos na China, e os espaços verdes urbanos
ainda são governados principalmente como recursos de solo urbano. A conceituação dos
espaços verdes urbanos como recursos comuns (common-pool resources) revela que eles
devem conter direitos de propriedade diferentes do que os recursos de solo urbano. Além disso,
a governança dos espaços verdes urbanos da China formalizou gradualmente as funções
ecológicas, incluindo o potencial para lidar com as alterações climáticas nas últimas duas
décadas e está principalmente em linha com as características dos regimes de governança de
bens comuns bem-sucedidos. A governança dos espaços verdes urbanos da China pode ser
melhorada, alcançando uma melhor equivalência entre benefícios e custos para todos os atores
e ampliando as práticas de escolha coletiva. Além disso, a governança dos espaços verdes
urbanos de Guangzhou está em sintonia com a estrutura de governança ambiental nacional de
Civilização Ecológica (Ecological Civilisation) por meio da condução ambos dos meios e dos
fins da mudança institucional.
Finalmente, apesar do progresso substancial sob a Civilização Ecológica, este estudo encontrou
três barreiras institucionais principais remanescentes na governança dos espaços verdes
urbanos em Guangzhou: a falta de fundamentos legais para avaliações regulares do estado
ecológico, a baixa consciência dos atores locais do estado sobre os impactos das alterações
climáticas e o potencial ecológico dos espaços verdes urbanos, e, a falta de compromisso de
longo prazo na abordagem mais baseada no ecossistema. A falta de fundamentos legais para
avaliações regulares do estado ecológico é uma barreira institucional que impede a
coordenação institucional multinível. A baixa consciência dos atores locais do estado sobre os
impactos das mudanças climáticas e o potencial ecológico dos espaços verdes urbanos é uma
rigidez institucional que limita a interação horizontal dentro dos governos locais que requer
soluções institucionais. A falta de compromisso de longo prazo para governar os espaços
verdes urbanos com base no reconhecimento dos valores e potenciais ecológicos é uma outra
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rigidez institucional que implica objetivos conflitantes, tensões e compensações nas dimensões
políticas.
Os resultados indicam que os espaços verdes urbanos como uma parte essencial do sistema
socioecológico urbano complexo, não devem ser governados simplesmente como recursos de
solo urbano. Para atribuir mais importância aos serviços ecossistêmicos e aos valores
ecológicos, é necessário definir um conjunto exclusivo e claro de direitos de propriedade para
os espaços verdes urbanos. A teoria de recursos comuns também indica que os arranjos
institucionais para a governança de recursos sustentáveis de longo prazo devem permitir que
os atores individuais e coletivos participem do processo (means) e atinjam os objetivos finais
(ends), como a saúde, o bem-estar, e a resiliência climática.
Esta pesquisa tem potencial em ajudar os formuladores de políticas nas cidades chinesas a
entender por que alguns casos de governança dos espaços verdes urbanos falharam no passado,
mesmo com grande perícia técnica no planeamento. Além disso, tem fornecido aos
formuladores de políticas sugestões práticas para melhorar a governança dos espaços verdes
urbanos e para se aproximar mais aos ideais da Civilização Ecológica. Finalmente, foi
apresentado várias direções para pesquisas futuras.
8
Acknowledgements
Undertaking this PhD has been a life-transforming experience for me, beyond doubt, and it
would not have been possible to achieve without the generous support of many professors,
friends, family members, and organisations. I would like to acknowledge a few.
First and foremost, I am profoundly grateful to my two supervisors for their tireless efforts to
cultivate my abilities towards a PhD. My principal supervisor, Professor Franz W. Gatzweiler,
has supported me in every way he could and tirelessly so on research advice, opportunities,
research resources, and inspired my thinking on every important subject matter related to this
thesis. He has frequently guided and advised me on the research subject and encouraged me to
present papers at conferences and to integrate into the professional networks in my research
area. His insightful feedback during our discussions pushed me to sharpen my thinking and
brought my work to a higher level. Besides valuable input, he also set a role model for
outstanding research, scholarship, and mentorship. My co-supervisor, Professor Olivia Bina,
has contributed much valuable advice and feedback on the research topic, direction, and the
analytical aspects. She has constantly supported me by monitoring the progress and making
sure that I am aware of the evaluation requirements and their periods and deadlines to progress
in the PhD. She has also been very patient and encouraged me to focus on completing this
thesis and with good quality.
I would also like to acknowledge the many admirable professors who diligently equipped me
with the essential knowledge foundation and research skills during the first year of the PhD,
including Professor Luísa Schmidt, Professor Filipe Duarte Santos, Professor Viriato
Soromenho-Marques, Professor Júlia Seixas, Professor Rui Ferreira Santos, Professor Ana
Delicado, Professor Mónica Trunninger, Professor Pedro Prista Monteiro, Professor Gil Penha-
Lopes, Professor José Saldanha Matos, Professor João Ferrão, Professor João Mourato,
Professor José Lima Santos, Profesor Rodrigo Proença de Oliveira, and Professor Tim
O’Riordan. It was a very inspiring, mind-opening and intellectually pleasing year for me.
Besides, I would like to thank Professor Mário Baptista Coelho and Professor Miguel Brito at
the Faculty of Sciences – University of Lisbon as well for preparing me to enter the PhD
Program with critical insights on renewable energies.
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Some special words of gratitude go to my host and colleagues at the Ostrom Workshop, where
I gained substantial theoretical knowledge about institutions and governance as a visiting
fellow. They are Professor Burnell Fischer (my host), Professor William Blomquist, Professor
Scott Shackelford, Professor Erik Nordman, Dr. Ruta Śpiewak, Professor Eduardo Brondizio,
Dr. Hita Unnikrishnan, Professor Stefan Kolev, Dr Joe Lambke, Gayle Higgins, Robin
Humphrey, David Price, Emily Castle, and Allison Sturgeon. My gratitude naturally includes
the legendary Professor Elinor Ostrom, who I will never have the opportunity to meet in person,
but in many ways, the interactions I had with her through reading, digesting, and debating her
work with colleagues have felt very personal and inspiring.
I am also grateful for Professor Martin de Jong, Professor Kongjian Yu, Professor Peter Ho,
and Professor Rong Tan for providing me valuable research advice throughout the PhD. I
would also like to announce my appreciation towards all those interviewees who have accepted
to work with me on this research or facilitated my access into critical policy archives, without
getting nor even expecting rewards. Unfortunately, I cannot name them here individually due
to privacy reasons. Their support has been truly essential for the success of this research. I want
to thank Dr. Marcus Grant for giving me the experience of being a Lead Guest Editor for a
special issue at Cities & Health. I am grateful to Dr Nicholas You, a veteran urban specialist,
and the Executive Director of the Guangzhou Institute for Urban Innovation, who inspired me
a great deal. I also appreciate Dr Peter Head, Dr Stephen Passmore, Dr José Siri, Dr Charles
Ebikeme, Dr Manasi Kumar, Professor Cunrui Huang, Dr Shaily Gandhi, and Dr Yash Shukla
for the inspiring conversations and collaborations we shared.
My gratitude also goes to the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação
para a Ciência e Tecnologia, FCT), Institute of Urban Environment – Chinese Academy of
Sciences (IUE-CAS), and Ostrom Workshop - Indiana University Bloomington. These
organisations have provided me generous scholarships and stipends, which were essential for
me to manage basic needs and focus on intellectual inquiry. I could not thank enough my home
institute – the Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon (ICS-ULisboa), which
provided me with an amazing, intellectually highly enabling academic environment with its
regular high-level international seminars and workshops, well-developed library, cozy café,
spacious computer rooms, quiet study rooms and free printing and fast internet services. My
appreciation also goes to all the hardworking staffs at ICS, particularly Dr. Maria Goretti
10
Matias and Mrs. Raquel Brito, for their patient and warm support for me to navigate the
administrative process of the PhD smoothly.
I would also like to thank my close friends from whom I have been so lucky to meet with and
learn, some of whom are also colleagues of the PhD program: Leon White, Jorge Conesa, Filipe
Lisboa, Fronika de Wit, Jiesper Tristan Petersen, Pedro Nunes, Sofia Castelo, Tainan Messina,
Patricia Silvério, Roy Bishuajit, Tomás Calheiros, Pedro Macedo, Ping Shou, Vickey Shan
Zhang, Apple Ying Tan, Rongyuan Chen, Yongxian Gan, Jianqi Luo, Ruby Tiantian Gui,
Mengmeng Cui, Ishtiak Zaman, Tingting Wu, Adnan Arshad, Lurdes Ferreira, Rui Mira, Ali
Hamidian, Geoffery Larson, Dapith Iglesias Sanders, Dr. Daniel Auer, Drew Du Bois, José
Pedro Rodrigues, and my exceptional sweet four-leg friend, Goji. I am grateful for the constant
warm emotional support they have given me. After the thesis submission leading to the
dissertation, Ms. Nazanin Bidabadi and Professor Rui Barros from the University of Porto
accompanied and encouraged me to a great extent – their gentle support and care moved me
very much.
Lastly, my sincere acknowledgements go to my family, my mother Chaoqiong Long, my

brother Junyu Liu, my father Qiongwen Liu, my cousin Shimin Long, and most importantly,
my former partner Nir Aviram and his family, for all their unconditional love, tireless
encouragement, and constant presence in my life.
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Dedication
To Nir Aviram, Hagibor:
‫ כל יום אני חושב עליך‬.‫ תודה‬.‫אני בר מזל שיש לי את האהבה המסורה והחברה שלך במשך שנים רבות‬
‫ אתה הגיבור שלי‬.‫ומרגיש מעודד ממך‬.
并致自己：
勿忘初心，为社会和环境作贡献。
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER I 24
INTRODUCTION 24
1.1 Urbanisation Trend, Environmental Degradation, and Climate Change Impacts in China
24
1.2 Urban Green Infrastructure as Nature-based Solution and Common-Pool Resource 27
1.3 The Challenges for Adopting Nature-based Solutions in China 29
1.4 Research Questions, Aims, and Objectives 31
1.5 Research Design and Methodology 34
CHAPTER II 38
LITERATURE REVIEW 38
2.1 The Theories 38
2.1.1 Ecological notion in Western urban planning theories 38
2.1.2 Ecological notion and Governance philosophy in China 41
2.2 The Practices 44
2.2.1 The environmental dimension: nexus between urban green spaces, climate change, health and
wellbeing 44
2.2.2 The technical dimension 46
2.2.2.1 From the perspectives of land-use and land economics 46
2.2.2.2 From the perspectives of urban ecology and landscape ecology 47
2.2.3 The economic dimension: economics of urban land and valuation of urban green spaces 49
2.2.4 The social dimension 51
2.2.5 The political dimension 51
2.2.5.1 International environmental and climate governance frameworks 51
2.2.5.2 National strategies and action plans 54
2.3 The Institutional Perspective 56
2.3.1 Relevance of the institutional perspective 56
2.3.2 Critiques on various governance approaches 56
2.3.2.1 Top-down and bottom-up governance 56
2.3.2.2 Multi-level governance 58
2.3.2.3 Collaborative and participatory governance 59
2.3.2.4 The emerging ‘urban’ focus in governance literature 60
2.3.3 Major institutional challenges in urban governance, globally and in China 61
CHAPTER III 63
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 63
3.1 Semantics Matter 63
13
3.2 Overview of the Theoretical Framework 65

3.3 Urban Social-Ecological Systems 67
3.4 The Common-Pool Resource (CPR) Theory 70
3.4.1 What is a common-pool resource (CPR)? 71
3.4.2 Why urban green spaces are common-pool resources? 74
3.4.3 Critical elements in common-pool resource governance 75
3.4.3.1 Governance and actors 75
3.4.3.2 Institutions 76
3.4.3.3 Property rights bundles 80
3.4.3.4 Transaction costs 82
3.4.3.5 Institutional change 84
3.5 Analysing Common-Pool Resource Governance through the IAD Framework 88
CHAPTER IV 94
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 94
4.1 Research Design 94
4.1.1 Designing the empirical analysis with the IAD framework 94
4.1.2 A qualitative, case-study-based research approach 96
4.1.3 Case selection, study period, and administrative level 97
4.2 Data Collection 99
4.2.1 Data collection methods 99
4.2.1.1 Semi-structured in-depth interviews 100
4.2.1.2 Archival research 102
4.2.1.3 Observation 104
4.2.2 Ethical considerations 104
4.2.3 Data collection timeframe 105
4.3 Data Analysis 106
4.3.1 Content analysis using MaxQDA 106
4.3.1.1 Qualitative content analysis 106
4.3.1.2 Using MaxQDA qualitative data analysis software 106
4.3.1.3 Organising data and coding 107
4.3.2 Multi-criteria assessment (MCA) 109
4.3.2.1 Multi-criteria assessment (MCA) for qualitative research 109
4.3.2.2 Applying multi-criteria assessment in this research 111
CHAPTER V 117
EMPIRICAL CONTEXT AND CASE PRESENTATION 117
5.1 Biophysical Contexts of China and of Guangzhou City 117
5.1.1 Natural and socio-economic conditions 117
5.1.2 Climate change impacts 123
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5.2 Institutional Contexts of China 126

5.2.1 Contemporary development philosophy before Ecological Civilisation 127
5.2.1.1 Socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics 127
5.2.1.2 Scientific Outlook on Development 128
5.2.2 Ecological Civilisation 128
5.2.2 History of environmental protection in China 136
5.2.3 Important plans on environmental health and climate change 139
5.2.4 A multi-level, nested hierarchical system of land-use and spatial planning 142
5.2.4.1 Five-level administrative system and processes for land-use and spatial planning 142
5.2.4.2 Typology of land and spatial plans in China 144
5.2.4.3 Definition and standards of urban green spaces in China 146
5.3 Three Urban Green Spaces Governance Cases in Guangzhou 147
5.3.1 Overview of the three case studies 148
5.3.2 Panyu Ecological Corridor 150
5.3.3 Haizhu Wetland Park 154
5.3.4 Tianhe Sponge City Demonstration Site 158
CHAPTER VI 164
ANALYSIS 164
6.1 Characteristics and Tendencies of the Rules-in-Use in Case Studies 164
6.1.1 Characteristics of the rules-in-use in case studies 164
6.1.2 Policy tendencies at the national level 168
6.1.3 Policy tendencies at the local level 172
6.1.4 Summary 174
6.2 Relationships and Power Dynamics between Actors 175
6.2.1 Summary 179
6.3 Interactions between Actors 180
6.3.1 Summary 184
6.4 Outcome in Urban Green Space Implementation and Institutional Change 185
6.4.1 Urban green space goals and deliverables from national and local plans and policies 185
6.4.2 Reflections on urban green space implementation - insights from in-depth interviews 188
6.4.3 Formal institutional changes, evolving priorities, and central-local correlation 190
6.4.4 Reflections on formal institutional change - insights from in-depth interviews 195
6.4.5 Informal institutional changes 197
6.4.6 Summary 198
6.5 Final Evaluation through Multi-Criteria Assessment (MCA) 201
6.5.1 Summary 204
CHAPTER VII 206
DISCUSSIONS 206
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7.1 Summary and Discussion of Main Findings 206

7.1.1 Land property rights arrangements determine UGS governance 206
7.1.2 Guangzhou’s UGS governance mostly in line with characteristics of successful CPR governance
regimes 208
7.1.3 Guangzhou’s UGS governance attunes with Ecological Civilisation 209
7.1.4 Sustained barriers to institutional change for UGS governance in China 210
7.2 Policy Implications 211
CHAPTER VIII 214
CONCLUSIONS 214
8.1 Research Overview and Reflection of Main Findings 214
8.2 Reflecting on the Aims, Objectives, and Methodology 217
8.3 Policy Recommendations 218
8.4 Key Scientific Contributions and Limitations of This Research 219
8.4.1 Key scientific contributions 219
8.4.2 Limitations of the IAD framework and the MCA method for this research 220
8.5 Future Research Directions 221
REFERENCES 222
ANNEX 264
1. Form of Informed Consent for Interview 264
2. Semi-Structured In-Depth Interview Outline 267
3. Selected semi-structured in-depth interview excerpts 272
4. List of Interviewees 276
5. List of Policy Documents 278
6. List of Scientific Publications during the PhD 286
7. Declaration of Original Authorship 288
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Institutional Analysis and Development framework. ............................................... 35
Figure 2: Structure of this thesis .............................................................................................. 37
Figure 3: Theoretical framework: Governance of urban green spaces as a common-pool
resources for climate resilience, health and wellbeing across scales and levels ...................... 66
Figure 4: Urban social-ecological systems and effects of integrative and segregative institutions
.................................................................................................................................................. 70
Figure 5: Four basic types of goods ......................................................................................... 72
Figure 6: Costs to achieve consensus dependent on the quantity and similarity of interests or
information (and thereby power) between actors .................................................................... 83
Figure 7: The Institutional Analysis and Development framework......................................... 89
Figure 8: The internal structure of an action situation. ............................................................ 91
Figure 9: The IAD framework applied in this research ........................................................... 95
Figure 10: The Heihe-Tengchong Line.................................................................................. 118
Figure 11: Geographic location of Guangzhou ...................................................................... 119
Figure 12: The current administrative districts and their distribution of Guangzhou ............ 120
Figure 13: Pearl River Delta in 1979 (left) and in 2000 (right) ............................................. 121
Figure 14: Guangzhou South Avenue looking towards the river in 1991 and 2015.............. 121
Figure 15: Decade trend of heat wave during the last 60 years in Guangzhou ..................... 124
Figure 16: Numbers of landfalling Tropical Cyclones affecting the Pearl River Delta region
from 1966-2015 ..................................................................................................................... 125
Figure 17: Institutional reform at the national level in the Chinese Central Government in 2018
................................................................................................................................................ 133
Figure 18: Major institutional reforms of China’s environmental governance system led by the
State prior to Ecological Civilisation ..................................................................................... 137
Figure 19: The current five-level administrative system of environmental protection, land-use
and spatial (and UGS) planning ............................................................................................. 144
Figure 20: Location of the three urban green space governance cases in Guangzhou .......... 149
Figure 21: Map of Panyu Ecological Corridor ...................................................................... 151
Figure 22: Satellite image of the Panyu Ecological Corridor area prior and after planning . 152
Figure 23: Location and planning map of the Guangzhou Wan Mu Orchard Wetland Park 155
Figure 24: Satellite image of the Haizhu Wetland Park area prior and after conversion ...... 156
17
Figure 25: Problems and opportunity windows of nature-based climate management in

Guangzhou ............................................................................................................................. 159
Figure 26: Guangzhou Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site ............................................ 161
Figure 27: Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site satellite images, prior and after conversion
................................................................................................................................................ 162
Figure 28: Images of Sponge City Demo Site in Guangzhou - Daguan Wetland Park ......... 162
Figure 29: Codes* on known costs and benefits and formal institutional changes and their
distribution frequency in national level policy documents .................................................... 167
distribution frequency in local level policy documents ......................................................... 167
Figure 31: Frequency of key terms mentioned in the national FYPs .................................... 169
Figure 32: Numbers of anticipated targets vs. binding targets defined in the FYPs .............. 171
Figure 33: Codes* on contemporary political philosophy and their distribution frequency in
the FYPs ................................................................................................................................. 172
National Climate Change and Sustainable Development Plans ............................................ 172
National Urban Spatial Planning and Development Plans .................................................... 172
National Institutional Reform Plans....................................................................................... 172
Local Climate Change and Sustainable Development Plans ................................................. 173
Local Urban Spatial Planning and Development Plans ......................................................... 174
Figure 39: Main actors in the three UGS case study in Guangzhou ...................................... 176
Figure 40: Actor relationships in Case 1 Panyu Eco-Corridor Network Construction .......... 177
Figure 41: Actor relationships in Case 2 Haizhu Wetland Park Construction ...................... 178
Figure 42: Actor relationships in Case 3 Tianhe Sponge City demo-site Construction ........ 179
Figure 43: Interactions between actors in the three UGS case studies .................................. 180
Figure 44: UGS goals and deliverables from the national UGS-related climate plans or spatial
planning policies during the case study period ...................................................................... 186
Figure 45: UGS actions or deliverables from the local UGS-related climate plans or spatial
planning policies during the case study period ...................................................................... 187
18
Figure 46: Linear increase trend in urban green space development, Guangzhou vs. National in
selected years ......................................................................................................................... 188
Figure 47: Formal institutional changes introduced in the national FYPs............................. 191
Figure 48: Areas and numbers of formal institutional changes presented in national climate
plans and spatial planning policies ........................................................................................ 193
Figure 49: Correlation between local and national levels in formal institutional change ..... 194
Figure 50: Five types of informal institutional changes identified in policy documents and in-
depth interviews ..................................................................................................................... 198
19
List of Tables
Table 1: Main research questions and sub-questions ............................................................... 32
Table 2: Overview of research questions, aims and objectives ............................................... 34
Table 3: Functions of UGS for climate change mitigation and adaptation .............................. 45
Table 4: Semantics matter: examples of key terms for this research and their meanings in
English and in Chinese............................................................................................................. 64
Table 5: Overview of research design ..................................................................................... 96
Table 6: Overview of data collection methods ...................................................................... 100
Table 7: Overview of fieldwork ............................................................................................. 105
Table 8: Categories, codes and sub-codes for the qualitative content analysis using MaxQDA
................................................................................................................................................ 109
Table 9: MCA criteria for this research – an overview of references .................................... 113
Table 10: Evaluative criteria developed for the multi-criteria assessment in this research ... 114
Table 11: MCA criteria matched with the ⑥Interactions and ⑦Outcomes of three case studies
for evaluation ......................................................................................................................... 116
Table 12: The 1-7 scale evaluation scheme for the MCA ..................................................... 116
Table 13: Land area, population density and UGS size of each district in Guangzhou in 2016
................................................................................................................................................ 122
Table 14: Major working areas and working items listed in the Integrated Reform Plan for
Promoting Ecological Progress .............................................................................................. 132
Table 15: Types of values of ecosystem goods and services considered in the GEP accounting
................................................................................................................................................ 134
Table 16: Types of urban land and classification by function in China ................................ 145
Table 17: Comparison of green space per capita requirements in earlier and current versions of
Urban Land Classification and Standards ............................................................................ 146
Table 18: Size related standards for UGS planning in China and in Europe ......................... 147
Table 19: Characteristics of the three UGS planning and governance cases in Guangzhou . 150
Table 20: Overview of the Chinese Sponge City initiative ................................................... 160
Table 21: Ratio of national vs. local policy documents in numbers in each type within the list
of policy documents for each case study ............................................................................... 168
Table 22: Direct interventions on or related to urban green spaces explicated in China's
National Plan on Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development .......... 170
Table 23: Numbers of targets in the 12th and 13th FYPs of Guangzhou .............................. 173
20
Table 24: Final Evaluation of UGS planning and governance in Guangzhou through a Multi-
Criteria Assessment (MCA)................................................................................................... 203
Table 25: Semi-structured in-depth interview questions and corresponding variables in the IAD
Framework ............................................................................................................................. 269
21
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
CCICED: International Cooperation on Environment and Development

CPR: Common-Pool Resources
COP: Conference of the Parties
DACCS: Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage
EA: Ecological Asset
EbA: Ecosystem-based Adaptation
ECV: Ecological Culture Services Value
EGCA: European Green Capital Award
EPV: Ecosystem Provision Value
ERV: Ecological Regulation Services Value
FYP: Five-Year Plan (China’s national social and economic development plan)
GDP: Gross Domestic Product
GEP: Gross Ecosystem Product
GD-HK-MO GBA: Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area
GHG: Green House Gases
GNH: Gross National Happiness
GPCDCP: Guangdong Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
HDI: Human Development Index
HiAP: Health in All Policies
HWP: Haizhu Wetland Park
IAD: Institutional Analysis and Development
IASS: Potsdam Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies
IPBES: Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
IUCN: The International Union for Conservation of Nature
LTPR: Land Tenure and Property Rights
MCA: Multi-Criteria Assessment
MCE: Multi-Criteria Evaluation
MEA: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
MEP: Ministry of Environmental Protection
MOHURD: Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development
MSL: Mean Sea Level
22
NbS: Nature-based Solution

NDCs: Nationally Determined Contributions
NDRC: National Development and Reform Commission
NIE: New Institutional Economics
NUA: New Urban Agenda
PEC: Panyu Ecological Corridor
PRD: Pearl River Delta
QDA: Qualitative Data Analysis
SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 3: Health and Wellbeing
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
SDG 13: Climate Action
SEA: Strategic Environmental Assessment
SEEA: UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting
SEPA: State Environmental Protection Agency
TEEB: Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity initiative
TSCD: Tianhe Sponge City Demonstration Site
UCLG: United Cities and Local Governments
UGS: Urban Green Spaces
ULT: Urban Land Teleconnections
UNFCCC: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
WAVES: World Bank Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services
WHO: World Health Organisation
WWF: World Wildlife Fund
23
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Urbanisation Trend, Environmental Degradation, and Climate Change Impacts in

China
The global urban population has grown rapidly since 1950, having raised from 30% to 55% in
2018 (UN DESA, 2018). In China, the urbanisation rate was even more extraordinary. It grew
rapidly from 17.9% in 1978 to 53.7% in 2014; during this period, 560 million population have
moved into cities and 465 new cities have been built (State Council of China, 2014c). The
country is projected to reach 70% urbanisation rate with over one billion population living in
cities by 2030 (Pan, 2016). The rapid urbanisation in China is considered to be one of the
biggest human settlement challenges in human history, accompanied by profound social,
economic, and environmental transformations (Bai et al., 2014; Bina, 2008). Environmentally,
urban land-use and landscape patterns have changed as a result of rapid urban development
and increase in total population (Dorning et al., 2015; Wu, 2010). In many emerging urban
areas in China, the growth of land employed for urban development is much faster than that of
population. Researchers (Bai et al., 2014) found the area of developed land in China grew by
78.5% between 2003 and 2013, while urban population grew only 46% during the same period.
Another research reveals approximately 27% of total agricultural land, forests, and grasslands
in China being converted to urban areas between 1979 and 2010 (Ren et al., 2013). The
remarkable transformation of green spaces to built-up areas has even gained a reference as
“landscape urbanisation,” in contrast to “demographic urbanisation” (Bai et al., 2012). Future
land-use forecasts suggest even more dramatic increases in natural-to-urban land conversion,
in other words, land in cities will be increasingly scarce, and more nature areas will be acquired
by cities as they continue to grow. Researchers have forecasted a 110%~185% of increase in
global urban land cover by 2030, with Asia accounting for nearly half of this increase (Angel
et al., 2011; Seto et al., 2012).
Unplanned and rapid urbanisation, demographic change, and drastic climatic changes are
among the primary drivers of disaster risks (UNDRR, 2015). In China, rapid increases in total
population and urbanisation globally in recent decades not only have induced significant
24
changes in land-use and landscape patterns, but also have resulted in a series of ecological and
environmental problems (Gong et al., 2018; Li et al., 2013). Today in China, research shows
nearly half of the total urban environment in all city regions, including surface water, air and
soil quality, has degraded and moderately degraded (He et al., 2017).
In addition, changes in climate in recent decades have caused negative impacts on natural and
human systems globally, across all continents and oceans, including those of China (IPCC,
2014). These impacts include the increase of average surface temperatures and the possibility
of extreme events or hazards, the increase in the numbers of most intense tropical cyclones,
inland and coastal flooding, landslides, drought, increased aridity, water scarcity, air pollution,
the continuously rising sea levels, storm surges, and fatal heatwaves (Elsner et al., 2008; IPCC,
2013; 2014; Walsh et al., 2014). Many of these climate change impacts are concentrated in
urban areas, demonstrating further consequences on human health and wellbeing, livelihoods
and assets (IPCC, 2014). Heatwaves, for example, impose both physical and mental danger,
such as heatstroke, depression and anxiety (Berry et al., 2010; Haines and Patz, 2004),
influencing especially the physically vulnerable and economically underprivileged population.
In China, heatwaves have significantly increased mortality risk across regions of high
heterogeneity, primarily in urban or densely populated communities (Ma et al., 2015). Research
show an evident increase in heatwaves and high temperature days in Guangdong province in
the last five decades, in which Guangzhou city is the capital (Du, 2011). Projecting into the
future, premature mortality by climate change-attributed air pollution is expected to increase
greatly, particularly in the areas of India and East Asia (Silva et al., 2017). Another negative
climate change impact for health is air pollution, primarily induced by transport, energy and
industrial production systems that rely on fossil fuels and occasionally aggravated by wildfires
nearby urban settlements that release particulate matter and other toxic substances (Finlay et
al., 2012), for instance, the air quality in much part of California in the summers of 2018 and
2020 during the wildfire season. In 2017, the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health
declares air pollution as “the largest environmental cause of disease and death in the world
today.” According to this report, air pollution was responsible for an estimated 9 million
premature deaths globally (16% of all deaths) in 2015 alone (Landrigan et al., 2018). In China,
many provinces have an increasing trend of overall mortality attributable to air pollution in the
last three decades. Despite ambitious policies and effort in recent years trying to reduce air
pollution from all industries, PM2.5 concentrations throughout the country still exceed the
25
WHO Air Quality Guideline1 for the entire population (Yin et al., 2020). In Guangzhou, a fast-
paced Southeast megacity with 15 million urban population 2, ambient O3 and NO2 were found
to be the main drivers for increased mortality rate (Wu et al., 2019). A study in 30 Chinese
provinces shows that air pollution in 2007 affected 72 million labor forces and caused 346
billion Yuan losses, which equals approximately 1.1% of the national GDP (Xia et al., 2016).
Similarly in Europe, pollution from heavy goods vehicles alone in the European Environment
Agency member countries costs 43-46 billion euros in health annually (EEA Release, 2013).
The physically and financially costly impacts of air pollution makes it a pressing issue for many
urban governments.
Furthermore, climate change impacts affect urban population and infrastructure with rising sea
levels and tropical cyclones of increasing frequency and intensity (Elsner et al., 2008; Walsh
et al., 2014). Floods and windstorms can adversely affect health through drowning, injuries,
hypothermia, and infectious diseases, especially dengue fever (Schnitzler et al., 2007;
Jakubicka et al., 2010). For example, Guangzhou, the megacity located on the low-laying
estuary of the Pearl River Delta in Southeast China, is ranked globally as the 4th city most at
risk regarding population exposed to flooding and storm surge (Hallegatte et al., 2013a; Hanson
et al., 2011; IPCC, 2014). In addition to physical health, the increased intensities of the
strongest tropical cyclones and the rising sea levels globally continue impacting the social,
economic, and environmental determinants of mental health, potentially leading to fear and
stress over exposure to high disaster risks and post-disaster traumas, or even the exact opposite
- denial, paralysis, and apathy (Berry et al., 2010; Fritze et al., 2008; Swim et al., 2017). The
risks also extend to the urban ecosystems. The observed urbanisation process accompanied by
massive socio-economic changes under climate change, as described above, are also changing
surface temperature and precipitation patterns, soil moisture levels, vegetation growth rates,
water and aquifer levels, and air quality, thereby increasing the ecological vulnerability of cities
(Kuttler, 2008; Rees and Wackernagel, 2008; Revi et al., 2014).
1
WHO guidelines for indoor air quality: selected pollutants. Available at: https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-
topics/environment-and-health/air-quality/publications/2010/who-guidelines-for-indoor-air-quality-selected-
pollutants
2
Bureau of Statistics of Guangzhou: Population size and distribution of Guangzhou in 2019 (in Chinese: 2019 年
广州市人口规模及分布情况). Available at: http://tjj.gz.gov.cn/gkmlpt/content/5/5727/post_5727607.html#226
26
With the ongoing dynamics of change, coastal cities and financially mal-prepared city-regions
are especially vulnerable (Malik et al., 2012). A global ranking of 10 megacities 3 with regard
to property and infrastructure assets exposed to sea level rise and coastal flood risks showed
eight megacities from Asia: Guangzhou, Kolkata, Shanghai, Mumbai, Tianjin, Tokyo, Hong
Kong, and Bangkok; notably, Guangzhou was the most vulnerable (Hallegatte et al., 2013a;
Nicholls et al., 2007). Cities broadly suffer from disaster-related life and economic loss due to
climate change impacts; however, cities in developing countries often are particularly at risk
due to their substantially higher concentration of population and much more dynamic socio-
economic development profiles (Kraas, 2008). Towards this end, high level experts in climate
change and urban health have urged for urgent, cross-sectoral, multi-level collaborative
policies and actions (Liu et al., 2019).
1.2 Urban Green Infrastructure as Nature-based Solution and Common-Pool Resource

On the one hand, cities in the future will increasingly have to grapple with these
multidimensional, uncertain and costly impacts of climate change and environmental
degradation (Bai et al., 2018; Dahiya, 2012; Gatzweiler et al., 2016). On the other, climate
actions led by and in cities are also essential to successful global climate adaptation and
environmental restoration, as cities are interconnected, complex adaptive systems that can lead
actions via effective governance (Revi et al., 2014). In addition, urban governments are also
uniquely situated to understand local contexts, raise awareness and respond to civil society’s
pressures with non-state actors (Brunner et al., 2005; Cash and Moser, 2000). The
advantageous position of cities and the challenges they are facing put urban governments at the
centre of successful urban actions, investments, policies, and legal frameworks (Revi et al.,
2014).
One of the emerging climate adaptation strategies many cities began to adopt is Nature-based
Solutions (NbS), sometimes also referred to as Ecosystem-based Adaptations (EbA) when it is
more specifically referred to in the climate change adaptation context (Gill et al., 2007; Kabisch
et al., 2016). NbS and EbA rely similarly on the installation of Urban Green Infrastructure
3
≥10 million population, as defined by the United Nations. Available at: "World Urbanisation Prospects, The
2018 Revision." UN DESA.
27
(UGI), including Urban Green Spaces (UGS), 4 community parks, street trees, green roofs,
green belts, green walls, beehives, urban food garden, ecological corridors, and the ecosystem
services they perform, to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change and to deliver
positive health benefits (European Environment Agency, 2017; Smith and Balakrishnan, 2009;
World Health Organisation, 2017). UGI demonstrate great potential in improving the quality
of urban environment, by moderating high temperatures through shading, purifying air,
absorbing noise, filtering and storing rainwater, hence can serve as an ideal NbS (Pramova et
al., 2012). UGI can therefore enhance the resilience of a city facing climate impacts, promote
sustainable lifestyles and improve urban health and wellbeing (World Health Organisation,
2017).
Backed by increasing literature on the benefits of UGI, inter-governmental organisations are

actively advocating urban governments to adopt UGI, more so in particular, UGS, as an NbS
on the ground. For instance, UN-Habitat urges local governments to “apply urban and
territorial planning to identify, revitalise, protect and produce high‑quality public and green
spaces with special ecological or heritage value… and to avoid the creation of heat islands,
protect the local biodiversity and support the creation of multifunctional UGS, such as
wetlands for rainwater retention and absorption” (UN-Habitat 2015: 22). Influenced by the
advocacy by inter-governmental organisations, some level of awareness of the need for NbS
measures is growing among urban governments (Revi et al., 2014). For example, Portland of
Oregon, Philadelphia of Pennsylvania, and Malmö of Sweden have utilised green roofs, ditches,
porous pavements, retention ponds, green space, and downspouts disconnection to reduce
stormwater and increase climate resilience, as these methods were at much more cost-effective
than increasing stormwater storage capacity (Foster et al., 2011; UNFCCC, 2015). Many cities
in China also have begun to increase UGS under a national scheme ‘Sponge City’ since 2015
under the promotion of its national environmental governance framework Ecological
Civilisation.
4
As a component of ‘green infrastructure’, urban green space (UGS) is defined by the WHO as “all urban land
covered by vegetation of any kind. This covers vegetation on private and public grounds, irrespective of size and
function, and can also include small water bodies such as ponds, lakes or streams (‘blue spaces’).”
WHO Europe. 2017. Urban Green Spaces: A Brief for Action. P2.
28
From an economic perspective, UGS such as ecological corridors, parks, and wetlands are de-
facto a type of common-pool resource (CPR) for their low excludability and high
subtractability (Colding et al., 2013; Ondrejicka et al., 2017; Ostrom, 2005). UGS is a property
highly subtractable due to the dependence on land availability within an urban territory, which
is increasingly scarce in many urban areas. On the other hand, it is challenging to exclude users
or residents from enjoying the benefits of UGS, both on the grounds of equity and biological
processes. From an equity perspective, health is a fundamental human right as the WHO
constitution recognises it. 5 The biological processes determine that all urban residents are
dependent on the ecosystem services provided by UGS for essential health and wellbeing.
However, at the moment, most academic research on UGS and NbS departs from the
perspectives of urban planning and urban ecology. Insights from urban planning may have the
potential to improve UGS accessibility, thereby achieving greater equity, while research from
the urban ecology perspective could provide valuable information for urban planning on
ecosystem services and ecological values. Nevertheless, both perspectives focus on the
technical dimension of NbS implementation, which is unable to resolve problems related to a
range of transaction costs incurred during the process of NbS implementation, such as costs of
planning, negotiation, information acquisition, and time. The New Institutional Economics
(NIE) is an interdisciplinary scientific branch that focuses on understanding the complexity of
social, political and commercial life and the changes over a long period through a combination
of economics, law, organisation theory, political science, sociology, and anthropology (Coase,
1998; Klein, 1998; Tadelis and Williamson, 2012). The evident research gap for institutional
insights of NbS could potentially be filled through the NIE perspective (Colding et al., 2020).
1.3 The Challenges for Adopting Nature-based Solutions in China

Despite increasing literature showing the evidence of NbS in climate adaptation and urban
health improvement and advocacies of inter-governmental organisations, implementing a
functional NbS sustainable for the long term is not necessarily easier in comparison to the so-
called “hard engineering” solutions (Roberts et al., 2012). In addition to the need to reach
technical maturity - data collection, expertise, and resource allocation, more complex
5
World Health Organisation. 2017. Human rights and health. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-
sheets/detail/human-rights-and-health
29
challenges such as urban land scarcity and institutional lock-ins remain obstacles for many
urban governments.
In China, planning for new UGS or even conserving current UGS are often hindered by urban
land scarcity (Accenture and Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2013). Implementing UGS,
particularly in dense urban areas in China, like in many other countries, subsequently has led
to a gentrification problem in which land prices and rent in the neighbour areas increased
(Birge-Liberman ,2017; Song and Wu, 2010). Currently, many countries or regions govern
UGS in combinations of public good (100% accessibility), club good (such as enclosed
apartment complexes), and private good (such as a private beach). However, treating UGS as
public good overlooks the possibility that the availability of UGS could change following the
changes in urban land scarcity. Similarly, treating UGS as a club or private good decreases the
equity for which UGS can benefit the health and wellbeing of all residents. More importantly,
governing UGS as a public, club, or private good cannot most adequately reflect the value of
its ecosystem services. In China, UGS as a category of urban development land is treated as a
public good. The primary purpose of UGS is to serve urban development through planning and
governance. During the last 30 years, China’s urban land resources have been strategically
allocated to primarily develop real estate, transport, and commercial infrastructures, which
resulted in the country’s rapid urbanisation and economic growth. The current institutional
arrangements are not the most conducive to allowing the urban governments to plan more UGS
as an NbS for climate adaptation and urban health improvement.
Enabling conditions and institutional frameworks for implementing NbS not only need to
ensure direct benefits and co-benefits for all residents for greater equity, but also need to
reframe the balance between urban population growth, health and wellbeing, land-driven
economic development, and climate resilience (Revi et al., 2014). Such enabling conditions
and institutional frameworks entail good urban government, or institutional structures, and
principles of good governance. Good governance, argued by many scholars, necessitates
institutional values, interests, awareness, analytical and decision-making capacities well fitting
into a collaborative working process with other institutions and actors (Birkmann et al., 2010;
Bulkeley, 2013; Garschagen, 2013; Moser and Luers, 2007). Moreover, to install an
ecologically functional and well-managed, diverse network of UGS, it requires an appropriate
understanding of how urban systems and their sub-systems function to provide goods and
30
services residents need and desire (Revi et al., 2014). After 30 years of rapid growth, China is
currently confronted between prioritising economic development and developing an
environmentally more friendly and more people-centred urbanisation paradigm (Bina, 2011;
UNDP, 2020). The central government has launched each time more ambitious institutional
reforms and schemes in the last decade, intending to treat environmental pollution, address
climate change impacts and transition to a more people-centred economy (led by a new national
development agenda Ecological Civilisation). However, whether these institutional reforms
and schemes can eventually overcome the path-dependency or inertia of the economy-centred
development strategies practised by Chinese local governments for the last 30 years and
achieve real breakthrough in the challenges mentioned above, is a fascinating question for
scholars across scientific domains and currently has no definite answers (Garnaut et al., 2018;
Yang et al., 2016). In fact, the path-dependency problem of the current economic model is
global, and it is diluting the possibility to achieve critical climate and sustainable development
goals.6 The need for speeding up actions and fundamental shifts is urgent.
1.4 Research Questions, Aims, and Objectives

Cities stand at the critical forefront of climate challenges as they account for a majority of
anthropogenic impacts on Earth and potential solutions and China has a tremendous
responsibility to take bold climate actions to protect its residents and secure its urban
infrastructure by virtue of its population size and economic trajectory (Bina, 2011; Elmqvist et
al., 2013; Frantzeskaki et al., 2016). This thesis examines China’s governance of UGS for
effective NbS through an institutional analysis with a meta-question “Facing expeditious
urbanisation and climate change impacts, how has China governed urban green spaces?”
as entry. The analysis will assess 1) the interaction between the Chinese local governments
and other stakeholders based on the given rules (mandates, policies) for the planning and
management of UGS, as well as 2) the outcome of the interaction, including a) the quality of
UGS or the effectiveness of NbS and b) the resultant institutional changes / alternated
institutional arrangements.
6
UN News. 16 July 2020. World off track in meeting 2030 Agenda, UN deputy chief warns, calls for solidarity
in COVID-19 recovery. Available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/07/1068551
31
Four main research questions and sub-questions are thus proposed (see Table 1):
Q1. What institutional Q1.1 What are the formal policy facilitations and challenges that
facilitations or challenges Chinese urban governments have received or confronted when
have Chinese urban planning and managing UGS?
governments received or Q1.2 What are the informal normative facilitations and challenges that
confronted when planning Chinese urban governments have received or confronted when
and managing UGS? planning and managing UGS?
Q2. How have local Q2.1 What has been the approach of the Guangzhou local
governments managed to governments for planning new UGS and managing them?
upscale UGS towards Q2.2 Has the UGS in Guangzhou been effective as an NbS and
more effective NbS? enhanced local climate resilience and urban health and wellbeing?
Q3.1 What are the good practices in land-use from the three case
studies?
Q3. What are the good Q3.2 What are the good practices in UGS planning from these case
practices to be shared? studies?
Q3.3 What are the good practices in urban governance in general from
these three case studies?
Q4. Why some challenges
Q4.1 How do the strong political determination and centralised
persisted despite
government system manifest themselves?
centralised government
Q4.2 What are the remaining challenges to be resolved?
system and strong
Q4.3 Why is it challenging to resolve these remaining challenges?
political determination?
Table 1: Main research questions and sub-questions
This thesis aims to

• understand the institutional dynamics, facilitators, and underlying barriers Chinese
local governments have faced in UGS governance,
• examine to which extent local governments have been able to advance and govern UGS
and with what approaches, then,
• analyse the costs and benefits that Chinese local governments have taken into
consideration for planning and managing UGS, and finally,
• identify intrinsic-value-related factors that have limited Chinese local governments to
pursue long-term, sustainable UGS governance for greater climate resilience, health,
and wellbeing.
32
The main objectives of this thesis are to

• fulfil the research gap that focuses on the institutional dimensions of NbS governance,
particularly in Chinese cities,
• share successful practical experiences in the Chinese approach to UGS governance,
• provide Chinese local governments with insights from the common-pool resource (CPR)
theory, thereby improving UGS governance, and finally,
• verify whether the current Chinese system reform is overcoming the path-dependence
of the economy-centred development strategy and achieving Ecological Civilisation,
the country´s new development paradigm and environmental governance framework.
The interdisciplinary, qualitative approach this thesis has taken to examine the institutions and
actors in UGI governance in China is righteously backed by senior scholars in the domains of
urban governance, risk reduction, climate change action and sustainability (Bai et al., 2018;
Elmqvist et al., 2013; Lawrence and Gatzweiler, 2017; Ostrom, 2005; Renn, 2008; Romero-
Lankao et al., 2017). The interdisciplinary NIE perspective is appropriate for unveiling the
complex interactions of the stakeholders of UGS and the outcome across environmental, social
and political spheres, as well as the changes over time in the Chinese political and urbanisation
context. This thesis thus employs the NIE perspective and encompasses the disciplines of
political sciences, organisation theory, sociology, and economics for institutional analysis on
the governance of UGS for effective NbS in China. Insights of UGS from the perspectives of
urban planning and urban ecology are used as the research foundation for this thesis. Science
of climate change and insights of its impacts on urban health and wellbeing serve as
background of this research.
Background Research question Aims Objectives

• Climate change impacts and
environmental degradation
prompting the need for NbS
Q1. What institutional A1. Understand O1. Fulfil research
• Path-dependency of economy-
facilitations or challenges have institutional gap of institutional
centred development strategies of
Chinese urban governments dynamics, insights of UGS
three decades
received or confronted when facilitators, and within Chinese
• Top-down governance tradition
planning and managing UGS? underlying barriers context
• Conventional role of UGS
(defined to serve urban
development)
33
• Unclear land tenure and Q2. How have local A2. Examine the
increasing urban land scarcity governments managed to extent and O2. Share successful
• Strong political determination by upscale UGS towards more approaches for UGS experiences
central government effective NbS? upscaling
A3. Analyse the O3. Provide new
• New insights needed to promote
Q3. What are the good costs and benefits insights from
bolder NbS through planning and
practices to be shared? taken into institutional analysis
managing UGS
consideration for local governments
O4. Verify the
Q4. Why some challenges A4. Understand potential of
• Urgent need to shift
persisted despite centralised intrinsic-value- institutional reforms
fundamentally and speed up
government system and strong related factors of for achieving
actions
political determination? institutional barriers Ecological
Civilisation
Table 2: Overview of research questions, aims and objectives
This PhD research has two main innovative aspects. The first one is the institutional focus on
UGS planning and management. Existing literature on UGS as a means of NbS for climate
resilience and health primarily depart from the perspectives of urban planning and landscape
ecology. The institutional lens to view and analyse UGS planning and management is an
emerging trend. The second innovative aspect is the conceptual framing and research of UGS
as a CPR. Despite being a country/region with probably the most abundant CPRs in the world,
research on CPRs in China, a unique socio-economic and political context in the field of
governance, remains rare, particularly in the urban context (Wang and Rosenau, 2009; Wang,
2017).
1.5 Research Design and Methodology

This thesis examines China’s governance of UGS for effective NbS through an institutional
analysis using the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IAD Framework) as an
analytical framework. The IAD framework was developed by American political scientist and
Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues in the 1980s at the Workshop in Political
Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University 7. It is intentionally created to “map” out
institutions and help people understand how institutions affect the incentives confronting
individuals and their resultant behavior (Ostrom, 1986 & 2005; Kiser and Ostrom, 2000). This
framework (see Figure 7: The Institutional Analysis and Development framework contains a
general set of variables that can be used to examine diverse institutional settings in which
7
Where the PhD Candidate has received a one-year Visiting Scholarship and visited between 2019 and 2020.
34
humans interact, e.g., markets, private enterprises, families, community organisations,

legislatures, and government agencies (Ostrom, 2005). The IAD Framework has been applied
by researchers throughout the world to understand the effect of rules on the outcomes of
common-pool resource settings. It is compatible with multiple theories in institutional
economics, including the transaction cost theory and the common-pool resource theory
(Ostrom, 2010). Greater explanation on how this thesis analyses 1) the interaction between
the Chinese local governments and other stakeholders for the planning and management of
UGS, and 2) the outcome of the interaction through the IAD framework can be found in
Chapter IV: Research Design and Methodology.
Figure 1: Institutional Analysis and Development framework.
Source: Adapted from Ostrom, 2005: 15
This thesis contains interdisciplinary, qualitative research of three UGS governance case
studies through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, archive research, and observation. This
research chose three UGS cases to make sense of the changes in UGS governance and the
effectiveness of NbS. The three UGS governance case studies were chosen from Guangzhou,
a fast-paced megacity with 15 million urban population located on the low-laying estuary of
the Pearl River Delta in Southeast China facing multiple climate change impacts, as mentioned
above. Facing the current rate of environmental deterioration and climate change impacts, how
the city of Guangzhou plans and manages UGS as an NbS could provide valuable lesson not
only for itself but also many other coastal cities with dense population. The case studies were
35
chosen within the same city to analyse observed changes in UGS governance over two decades
following the changes of policy mandates within the same government system operated by the
same urban government. The researcher interviewed 50 in total key informants, including
academic researchers, urban planners, local government officials, economists, urban
consultants, NGOs, and citizens. The interviews were complemented with archive research and
review – policy documents, spatial plans, and media reports effective between 2000–2018. The
three UGS governance cases in Guangzhou are:
1. The Panyu Ecological Corridor (PEC) case, which presents a conflict of interest between
municipal and district governments. In this case, the municipal government of Guangzhou
(GZ) aimed to promote a city-wide ecological corridor system; however, the district
government of Panyu (PY) had an interest in economic development which would employ
the land nearby or even within the PEC system.
2. The Haizhu Wetland Park (HWP) case, which represents a conflict of interest between
GZ, farmers (land and homeowners), and urban migrants (tenants). The land property
transfers only benefited the farmers but not the urban migrants because of the dual urban-
rural household registration system, leaving urban migrants’ quality of life unattended.
3. The Sponge City Demonstration Site (TSCD) case, which represents a conflict of interest
between different branches within the municipal government, e.g., between the Bureau of
Water Affairs and the Administration of Forestry and Gardening. In addition, for the
equipment and service suppliers in the private sector with established connections to the
conventional engineering solutions through public infrastructure construction projects,
their vested interests are challenged by the Sponge City Initiative as it is a nature-based
rather than engineering-based solution.
These three cases occurred across the span of the last twenty years, each representing different
institutional settings, namely, different combination of preferences in urban development,
property rights bundles, and governance arrangements. These differences will be analysed from
an institutional economics perspective, namely, how transaction costs influence actor
interactions and resultant institutional arrangements for UGS governance in China over time.
The application of Ostrom’s IAD Framework will help unravel the relevant stakeholders, rules,
exogenous and endogenous institutional factors in place, and resultant changes over time.
36
The structure of this thesis is shown in Figure 2:
Figure 2: Structure of this thesis
37
CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The Theories
2.1.1 Ecological notion in Western urban planning theories

Urban planning in the post-war period (after 1945) and even before that in Europe and North
America was widely perceived as physical planning and design in essence. First, urban
planning was primarily concerned with the physical environment as opposed to the social and
economic aspects. Urban planning around that time primarily valued aesthetic design, as
architects, civil engineering, and surveying professionals were the main planners. For that
reason, the standard of planning then often involved precise 'master' plans (Keeble, 1969;
Taylor, 1998) A few example include: the southern extension plan of Amsterdam designed by
the early modernist architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage, the Ville Radieuse (the Radiant City) by
modern architect Le Corbusier, and the Broadacre City urban development concept proposed
by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (Howard, 2013). These planning approaches were
criticised later for overly emphasising the physical aspects of urban environment and relying
on precise and inflexible plans, which resulted in a lack of community consultation and
exclusion of social and economic dynamics (Taylor, 1998). This period thus was referred to as
‘utopianism’ or ‘romanticism’ (Fishman, 2016; Jacobs, 1961).
As response, new theories rose in the 1960s to view urban areas as complex systems and urban
planning as rational processes (Foley, 1973; Taylor, 1998). The 'systems view' of planning was
brought forward by British planning theorist Brian McLoughlin through his book Urban and
Regional Planning: A Systems Approach (1969). McLoughlin essentially views and analyses
urban areas and regions as systems. A system, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, 8
is 'a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network; a
complex whole.’ McLoughlin argues that components of the urban system include location of
the land as well as human interactions with the land through communications networks
(McLoughlin, 1965). He finds support for systems thinking through reflecting on the inter-
8
https://www.lexico.com/definition/system
38
relatedness of natural phenomena in ecosystems and drawing examples from human-nature

interaction failures. Taylor (1998) considers the systems view beneficial for understanding the
social and economic dynamics of cities as complex, adaptive systems.
Another emerging urban planning theory throughout the 1960s was the 'rational process' view
of planning (also commonly known as the 'procedural planning theory' into the 1970s), which
emphasises the process of planning as a rational process of decision-making. This view is a
normative response to the criticism on “blueprint” planning, as it treats planning as a form of
social action in which the process and method of planning are the focus, rather than the end-
state of plans (Taylor, 1998). Compared to the first-generation ‘physical design’ urban planning
approach, the complex systems view, and the rational process view of planning demonstrate
greater comprehensiveness to both the process and the objects of planning.
However, soon the systems view of urban planning was also criticised for being unnecessarily
associated with highly abstract, technical and mathematical terms such as 'modelling’ and
‘optimising,’ and for treating cities as if they “were some kind of a machine that had one
politically uncontentious optimal state” (Taylor, 1998: 78). Urban planning critics addressed
the need to improve these planning theories by including the social and political actors and
their values in context (Friedmann, 1969; Scott and Roweis, 1977; Thomas, 1979).
The progress of urban planning theories in the 1960s and 1970s based on reason and science
had its support from the era of modernism, in which planning was viewed as an application of
scientific method to support policy-making (Faludi, 1973). The criticisms towards these two
views of planning helped reveal the nature of planning as value-laden and political, and
prompted theorists to shift attention to public participation and value representation of
stakeholders in the planning process in Western political and economic context (Arnstein, 1969;
Long, 1959; Pickvance, 1977; Taylor, 1998). In particular, the critical role of market was
examined regarding how it approaches private land property rights and land transactions for
planning alongside local planning authorities, and how planning results respond to or serve the
need of urban development in liberal economies. Pickvance (1977) argues that it is market
forces that are primarily responsible for determining the pattern of land development. But
rather than competing with governments, planning theorists generally argue that the role of
market was positive and in fact, worked closely with governments to deliver plans which
39
served urban development in liberal economies (Taylor, 1998). To conclude, planning theories
in the 1970s reached consensus that urban planning must be viewed, analysed, conducted and
examined rationally through communication with diverse actors within political and economic
contexts, and that both planning implementation and market forces play crucial roles in
determining the outcomes of planning practice (Misgeld et al.,1981).
Entering the 1980s, the ‘regime theory’ emerged to question the assumption of involving
government authorities necessarily to accomplish desired planning outcomes and to explain
the increasing cooperation phenomenon between governmental and non-state actors (Stone and
Feagin, 1990). Regime theory works on the precondition that in liberal societies, often,
significant decisions affecting individuals’ lives are made by firms operating within the market
system rather than by the government. Thus, different urban planning regimes may arise in
different political and economic circumstances in which degrees of market freedom vary.
Another theory - the ‘problem-centred’ planning theory was proposed during the late 1970s to
place greater focus on the issues and problems which urban planning seeks to address. The
‘problem-centred’ planning theory seeks to address problems of five main areas: 1) the
continued economic decline of some urban areas, 2) social divisions and inequalities, 3) the
life-threatening ecological changes and planning for greater sustainability, 4) the aesthetic
quality of urban environments, and 5) degree of public participation in planning (Taylor, 1998).
To conclude, Western urban planning theories evolved 1) from viewing cities as simple
physical to complex social-ecological systems, 2) from focusing on the aesthetic and
comprehensive ‘end-state’ of planning to the rational process of planning, 3) from political and
economic context insensitive to context-sensitive, 4) from local market and civil actors
exclusive to local actors inclusive, and 5) from focus on the method of planning to focus on
the practical problems that planning seeks to resolve. These evolutions of urban planning have
gone hand in hand with the changes within the larger Western political and economic contexts,
which evolved from post-war reconstruction to modernism further to postmodernism. During
each of these phases, the power of government has been shared further with other social and
economic actors.
40
2.1.2 Ecological notion and Governance philosophy in China

Taoism is arguably the most acknowledged traditional Chinese philosophy that cast a
theoretical influence on spatial planning in China (Gaubatz, 1999; Zhang, 2008). Tao (道)
means ‘the Way,’ and it is the primary principle by which all things exist and interrelate. In the
Taoist view, each part of the universe is comprised of complementary aspects known as yin
and yang. Yin can be described as passive, dark, secretive, negative, weak, feminine, and cool,
while yang, on the contrary, is active, bright, revealed, positive, masculine, and hot. Yin and
yang as two contrasting aspects interact and shift from one extreme to the other constantly,
giving rise to the rhythm of nature and unending change (Ely, 2009). The core philosophy of
Taoism is primarily embedded in the relation between humans and nature, and ‘Wu Wei’ (无
为), which literally means ‘take no (forceful) action or inexertion”, is the central philosophy of
Taoism and a proposal for approaching and governing nature. Mountains, for example, have
long been imagined as having sacred power, manifesting nature’s vital energy, or qi (气). Such
power gathered the rain clouds that watered farmer’s crops, and concealed medicinal herbs,
fruits, and alchemical minerals projecting the hope of longevity. Ordinary Chinese people
wandered in mountains and practised meditation in caves and grottoes, which were considered
gateways to other realms. Caves and grottos are referred to as “cave heavens” (洞天) for
spiritual enlightenment and projection of hope for immortality. Poets celebrated the beauty of
nature, city dwellers have built country estates to escape the dust and pestilence of crowded
urban centres, and officials retreated to the mountains as places of refuge during periods of
political turmoil. In ancient Chinese thought, nature is conceived as self-generating,
interconnected, complex, and constantly evolving systems. This proverb from Tao De Jing, the
most prominent Taoism classic literature, written by Laozi (or Lao Tzu): “Men emulate earth;
earth emulates heaven; heaven emulates the Tao; the Tao emulates spontaneity.” Laozi further
advised the governing class (Chapter 64) not to overvalue “materials that are hard to come
by”, instead, to desire and learn “what others do not” and redeem “the errors of the masses.”
In the Taoists’ view, the essence of Tao is about following the laws of nature and not to
intervene because the law of nature is the natural intervention that the system needs to maintain
a peaceful, natural evolution. So, if a leader could follow the principle of Tao to govern its
territory and people (Chapter 37), “everything will develop, evolve, and die by themselves,
therefore completing many comprehensive nature cycles.”
41
While the Taoism philosophy emphasises human-nature relationships, Confucianism evolved

to become the dominant school of thought for the governance of good morals. For instance, in
the dialogue between the Duke Jing of Qi and Confucius recorded in Chapter 12:11 of
Confucian Analects, the Duke asked Confucius about government, Confucius replied: “Let the
ruler be a ruler; the minister, a minister; the father, a father; the son, a son.” The Duke
responded: “Truly, if the ruler is not a ruler, the subject is not a subject, the father is not a
father, and the son is not a son, even if I have revenue, will I enjoy it?” 9 The Confucian school
of thought was essentially a moral education that enabled government officials to exercise
proper judgment, as it comprises a complex series of rules and rituals for government officials.
The Confucian philosophy functioned well in guiding governance. The doctrines were studied
by officials to put general rules in specific contexts by their proper or moral judgments
(Fukuyama, 2016). In summary, the Taoist philosophy of human-nature harmony and the
Confucian school on the moral education of government officials constituted the hallmarks of
the Chinese central planning and governance (Fukuyama, 2016). Under these influences,
traditional Chinese urban settlements often had their street networks and primary architecture
aligned with the cardinal directions to conform with the Chinese Taoist geomancy and were
separated from one another with walls. These traditional Chinese towns or urban areas
primarily evolved around clan or family relationships, and reflected the complex composition
of a hierarchical society and was described as having applied the classical top-down approach
of the “emperor ruling.” (Gaubatz, 1999).
Moving onto more modern times, the Western theories and practices of urban planning have
also influenced planning in Chinese cities. The Western rational and comprehensive process
view of planning along with the socialist theory were adopted in China during the Maoist period
between 1949 and the end of 1970s (Douay, 2008; Gaubatz, 1999). The year 1949 marks a
starting point of a new era for urban planning in China as the new government sought to rebuild
for a socialist society conformant to Soviet communism. Thus, in the 1950s, China established
its planning committees under the influence of socialist theory and Soviet centralism (Gaubatz,
1999). In the socialist context, the Chinese urban planning delegated state-led urban plans and
policies downwards (Wu, 2000). In practice, China’s urban planning in the 1950s and 1960s
were conducted under the notion of ‘strategic planning,’ which has an aged origin from the
9
Chinese Text Project. Available at: https://ctext.org/analects/ens
42
military domain to help implement strategies in the context of war (Douay, 2008). The socialist
planning during 1949-late 1970s has been described as centralised socialist planning, or “big
government” (Douay, 2008). In this period, the central government took major decisions and
regulation for urban planning, while municipal officials had limited influence over the form or
content of urban development (Zhang, 2008). Only a small cohort of traditional actors, namely,
government officials and planning experts were in the legal position to conduct urban planning
and they interacted. This period was thus referred to as urban planning of elitism (Douay, 2008;
de Jong, 2019). The aim of the socialist urban planning was to “serve the people,” but in
practice, it was often bureaucratic with planning experts and political elites focusing on
technical issues and was rarely open to external actors (Douay, 2008). During this period, the
planning principles primarily served political or ideological purposes rather than ecological
and was operated primarily by the state (Yeh and Wu, 1999).
As China took a shift for economic liberation reform in 1979, the Western urban regime theory,
which explains the increasing influence of private sectors in the urban planning process, also
gained popularity in China for understanding the emergence of contemporary cities in the post-
Maoist period. Overall, the period of Chinese urban planning and development since the
national economic liberation and reform in 1979 has been viewed as efficiency-driven (Bina,
2011). After the economic reform and along the waves of neoliberalism from the 1980s, the
notion of strategic planning demonstrated even greater influence on the Chinese economic
development planning, e.g., special economic zones and technology development zones along
China’s urban coastline. The Chinese strategic planning in this period also included the
introduction of the market economy system, opening the planning process out to private actors,
and reforming land property rights and rules of land transfer. Between the 90s to early 2000,
the urban planning realities in China had rapidly evolved to be more complex, thus required
new theories to understand better the potentials of public-private sector collaboration in urban
planning (Douay, 2008). For this purpose, the urban regime theory proposed by Western urban
planning scholars became popular (Douay, 2008). During this period, the land-dependent and
market-led economic development took off and created many new cities, often outpacing the
capacity of urban planning land-use regulation institutions (Wang, 2015). The mismatch in the
pace between market-led development and state-led planning generated multiple social and
environmental externalities, e.g., the exclusion of the migrant workers from accessing and the
degradation of urban living environment (Douay, 2008). The urban regime theory was popular
43
but again, was a lens of political economy rather than ecological. As China enters an era of
major governance and technological efforts for urban sustainability, new theories or
perspectives are needed to address these problems and guide Chinese urban planning for a
socially and environmentally more sustainable way of development (Elmqvist et al., 2013;
Wang, 2015).
2.2 The Practices

From an urban systems perspective, UGS are viewed as one of the various types of urban
infrastructures for public services; hence are referred as urban green infrastructures (UGI). UGI
includes green biological corridors, green roofs, parks, alley and street trees, as well as urban
forests (bigger parks). UGI are properties of multiple dimensions, including environmental,
technical, economic, social, and political/jurisdictional dimensions which concern a wide range
of urban stakeholders - public policymakers, professional planners, private investors,
maintenance crews, and users or beneficiaries across all levels and scales (Vincent, 2018).
2.2.1 The environmental dimension: nexus between urban green spaces, climate change,
health and wellbeing
Increasing scientific literature is supporting the nexus between UGS and climate change. UGS
can cool down urban areas effectively by shading and reducing evaporation, thereby mitigating
urban heat island effect and heatwaves, and reducing energy consumption (Lindén et al., 2016;
Nowak et al., 2017; Oliveira et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2017a). If planned
and managed adequately, UGS can also provide urban residents with decent access to nature,
maintain and protect urban biodiversity, sequestrate CO 2 through photosynthesis, reduce air
pollution and noise, retain floodwater and fixate soil, maintain surface moisture, and mitigate
the impacts of extreme weather events (see Table 3) (Alberti et al., 2018; Escobedo et al., 2010;
Hall et al., 2012; Hartig et al., 2014; Strohbach and Haase, 2012; Zhang et al., 2017b). Due to
these potentials, UGS are increasingly considered as a NbS to restore degraded environment,
mitigate and adapt to climate change impacts (Gill et al., 2007; Kabisch et al., 2017).
44
Functions of UGS Purpose

Carbon sequestration
Climate mitigation
Energy saving (cooling, biomass)
Climate regulation
Soil fixing
Stormwater infiltration
Climate adaptation
Water and air purification
Biodiversity conservation
Cultural services (aesthetic, spiritual and educational)
Table 3: Functions of UGS for climate change mitigation and adaptation
In addition to mitigating and adapting to climate impacts, the nexus between UGS and physical
and mental health is also evident. Physical inactivity, a likely result of poor walkability and
lack of access to recreational areas, is found to be the fourth leading contributor to diseases and
account for 3.3% of deaths globally (Beaglehole et al., 2011; World Health Organisation n.d.).
Accessible UGS can facilitate physical activity and relaxation, and form a refuge from noise
(González-Oreja et al., 2010; Irvine et al., 2009). Decently distributed trees and vegetation can
promote the production of oxygen, decrease levels of airborne particulate matter and
atmospheric CO2 through photosynthesis and carbon sequestration (Chen, 2015; Hartig and
Kahn, 2016; Lee and Maheswaran, 2011; Rowe, 2011; Strohbach et al., 2012; Whittinghill et
al., 2014). In addition, by promoting physical activity, better air quality and more pleasant
temperature, UGS can help reduce heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels, hence reduce
cardiovascular morbidity and prevalence of type 2 diabetes (Gascon et al., 2016; Lanki et al.,
2017; Richardson et al., 2013; Tamosiunas et al., 2014; Ulmer et al., 2016; WHO, 2016). UGS
is also beneficial for mental health and cognitive functions, such as improved memory and
better creativity (Gascon et al., 2015; Nutsford et al., 2013). Hence, making UGS accessible is
a relevant issue particularly for schoolchildren (Cherrie et al., 2018; Dadvand et al., 2015).
Connection with nature has a significant positive effect on autonomy, personal growth, and a
sense of purpose (Hartig, 2008; Hunziker et al., 2007). Furthermore, UGS can foster social
interactions and promote a sense of community, trust, shared norms and values, positive and
friendly relationships, and feeling of belonging (Peters et al., 2010; Ruijsbroek et al., 2017; De
Vries et al., 2013). Increasing research has showed the positive association trend between UGS
created and urban health and wellbeing, however, results have been context dependent (e.g.,
45
coastal, urban, rural), locally focused, and overall not been robust enough to yield efficient
policy actions (Kabisch et al., 2017; Scarano, 2017).
In summary, increasing scientific literature is supporting the nexus between UGS, climate
change mitigation and adaptation, as well as human health and wellbeing. However, critical
insights for policymaking, such as quantification of the economic values, costs and benefits of
UGS implementation, are existing knowledge gap yet to be addressed.
2.2.2 The technical dimension
2.2.2.1 From the perspectives of land-use and land economics

The Chinese government has had various approaches towards land-use and urban planning in
different phases of economic development in the last seven decades with the overall tendency
of decentralisation, and planning based on pragmatic economic valuation. Between 1949 and
the end of the 70s, the state had both the ownership and usage right of land during the socialist
period; as the government administrated all functions of land, the value of land could not be
adequately reflected (Lin and Ho, 2005).
The economic reform in 1979 resulted in the marketisation of land use rights to accommodate
private sector interests in land-based urban development while the public land ownership was
kept, and decentralised decision-making to local urban governments. The marketisation of
land-use rights was formalised into what scholars referred to as the asymmetric ‘dual-track’
land market system in the fiscal reforms of the mid-1990s (Lin and Ho, 2005). Under this dual-
track land system, the economic potential of urban land was more pronounced; cities quickly
built many infrastructure facilities that are conducive to economic development, such as
transport, commerce, industry, and housing. The profits brought by the dual-track land system
have gradually become an essential source of revenue for local urban governments, as they
authorise not only the transactions of land-use rights (or, land leasing) but also the conversion
of rural land to urban land. These practices have become a major incentive for local
governments to approve rural-urban land conversion (Bai et al., 2012b; Ping, 2011). Between
the 80s to early Millennium, China’s total urban land area increased most significantly;
industries and infrastructures promoted by foreign direct investment were the most significant
46
driver for the rural-urban land conversion, also thanks land subsidies provided by the State
government (Deng et al., 2008; Seto and Kaufmann, 2003; Tao et al., 2010).
The dual-track land system has contributed to social equity issues broadly, as the benefits of
land-based urban economic development remain in cities and not shared among rural
communities (Ding and Lichtenberg, 2011). Besides, the large scale of rural land conversion
and disordered urbanisation also resulted in modification of the natural landscape and soil
pollution (Chen et al., 2018). Even when local governments began to consider the potential of
UGS for strategic planning at the new Millennium, the main purposes were to boost land supply
and economic productivity and foster more clustered developments to counteract urban sprawl.
Scholars have identified social externalities associated with such strategic planning, namely,
disconnection of the initial place-based social connections and displacement of urban migrants
(Ng, 2019).
2.2.2.2 From the perspectives of urban ecology and landscape ecology

Research on urban systems from the urban ecology perspective went through the stages of
examining ecology in, of, and for cities (Childers et al., 2015). Initially, it focused on what is
‘in’ cities, e.g., the terrestrial and aquatic patches within cities and the ecological performances
of urban plants and animals (Pickett et al., 2016). More recently, the discipline gained an
amplified focus on what is ‘of’ cities, treating entire urban mosaics as social-ecological systems
in which biological, social, and built components interact with each other (Pickett et al., 2016;
Sukopp, 2008). Today, the discipline of urban ecology is recognised as one that seeks to
understand urban growth through characterising the biophysical expansion, metabolism,
succession and fluxes of energy and materials in urban areas and urban dwellers (Alberti et al.,
2003; Burgess, 2008). The study of urban ecological systems has attracted much interest,
particularly in the last two decades. Scholars revealed limits on both the urban-oriented and
nature-oriented approaches to understanding the urban environment as a complex, human-
dominated system, in which urban dwellers play an equal role as the plants and animals in
urban territories in influencing urban metabolisms. Mainstream urban ecology focuses on how
human activities shape urban environments, including urban climate resulting from different
uses of built-up areas such as urban-heat-island effect and transport-induced air pollution
(Kuttler, 2008). As urban population outnumbered rural ones, there is an emergent need also
to understand how humans are affected by their urban surroundings (Grimm et al., 2008). In
47
recent literature, urban ecology has been a useful perspective to reveal the relations between
social arrangements (political powers, economic investments and institutional setups) and the
size, distribution and connectivity of areas which host plants and animals in cities (Grimm et
al., 2008). Studies in urban ecology have revealed significant contributions of natural processes,
or ecosystem services, to human health and wellbeing (Syrbe and Walz, 2012). However,
questions have persisted regarding the practicality of urban ecology studies for informing
policy design, integration, and inspiring civil actions, despite being an interdisciplinary science
field (Ahern, 2013; Pataki, 2015). The questioning, plus recently increasing social-ecological
complexities and climate uncertainties in urban environments, prompted the discipline of urban
ecology to shift to what scholars referred to as a new paradigm – ecology ‘for’ cities, with
greater concern for urban sustainability and a focus on holistic social-ecological systems
(Childers et al., 2015; Pickett et al., 2016).
Landscape ecology as a similar discipline was created in the early 1980s to study interactions
among landscape elements (Li et al., 2005). Compared to urban ecology, it focus more
specifically on natural ecosystems and to offer new concepts, theory, and methods that reveal
the importance of spatial patterning and the dynamics of interacting ecosystems (Gill et al.,
2007; Turner et al., 2003). The discipline has inspired planners and architects to integrate
ecological principles in urban planning and design process. Today, landscape ecologists have
validated the potential of urban green landscapes, or green infrastructure, in restoring degraded
urban environments (Foster et al., 2011; Gill et al., 2007; La Greca et al., 2011; Zhang et al.,
2011). Similarly, landscape ecology as a scientific discipline rapidly advanced in the last two
decades thanks to emerging computer power and technology such as geographical information
systems (GIS) (Turner and Gardner, 2015). The emerging needs of cities to mitigate and adapt
to climate change impacts further underlined the importance of understanding spatial patterns
in ecological systems. Landscape ecologists refer to the approach of planning urban natural
landscapes and utilising ecosystem services to reduce the vulnerability of ecosystems as
‘ecosystem-based adaptation’ (EbA) (Revi et al., 2014).
Even though EbA has been identified as a key contributor to urban resilience, the landscape-
oriented or ecology-oriented urban plans have often been criticised as technical, and lacking
socio-economic stakeholder inclusion (Nesshöver et al., 2017; Revi et al., 2014). Besides,
although the EbA strategy seems to be able to provide multiple ecosystem benefits and is not
48
dependent on high technology, it is far from an easy and affordable approach. The costs of EbA
in urban contexts might be higher than expected largely because costs are higher for land
acquisition and ecosystem management (Cartwright et al., 2013; Roberts et al., 2012). For these
reasons, scholars call for moving ecology sciences towards an integrated urban science
(McPhearson et al., 2016).
2.2.3 The economic dimension: economics of urban land and valuation of urban green
spaces
Existing literature has presented several main reasons for which governing UGS remains
challenging in China. To begin, the Chinese urban planning system has first commanded and
later commodified land primarily as a resource of space (Alix-Garcia et al., 2016). As the
central government declared for economic reform and liberation in the late 1970s, land-use
rights became tradable and had been quickly commodified for infrastructural development in
cities and for building new cities. Rapid land commodification during the country’s rapid
urbanisation process resulted in ambiguous property rights arrangements of urban land in many
Chinese cities. In many cases, the delineation of property rights by government officials only
incurred after the actual occupation or use of urban land (Liu et al., 2019; Zhu, 2008). The
consequence is that land consumption has occurred at speed much higher than that of urban
population growth. Between 2000 - 2011, the built area in Chinese cities increased by 76.4%,
much higher than the rate of urban population growth, which increased by 50.5% (State
Council of China, 2014b). In addition, urban land scarcity became increasingly evident
particularly in coastal cities, prompting local officials and planners to emphasise even more on
achieving economic efficiency from existing urban land resources (Mao et al., 2020). In general,
economists consider land resources as the most valuable natural resource considering its
scarcity and critical role for production for almost all goods and services crucial for human life
(Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010). Land scarcity determines that it is critical to producing the
highest amount (quantity and quality) of economic goods and services from the land available
in any development or management activities.
Furthermore, quantifying the ecological values of UGS and translating accurately into
monetary terms has been a significant technical difficulty to environmental economists. Costs
of technical planning, equipment, and implementation are easily identifiable. However, the
costs of potential change to the local ecosystem (increasing or decreasing biodiversity) and
49
potential influence in neighbour property values, residents health and wellbeing cannot be
anticipated appropriately (Choumert and Salanié, 2008). Current valuation methods of UGS,
e.g., contingent valuation, choice experiment, hedonic price modelling, and the travel cost
method, approach the value of UGS either through proxies or through a hypothetical estimation
(Lo and Jim, 2010; Powe et al., 2005; Randall et al., 1990). For example, a study on the value
of UGS in Guangzhou, China focused on residents’ willingness to pay for recreation-amenity
use (Jim and Chen, 2006). While the study showed positive monetary value for the recreation-
amenity use of UGS in Guangzhou, it focused only on the cultural ecosystem services, plus the
positive monetary value achieved by the contingent valuation method was hypothetical.
Another study focusing on more comprehensive types of ecosystem services in Beijing using
the hedonic price modelling method was able to generate suggestions on the ideal patterns and
sizes of UGS for the best ecological outcome (Xu et al., 2016). Nevertheless, the study lacked
compelling cost-benefit reasoning for policymakers. Hence, these methods are limited in
reflecting the comprehensive values of UGS. Even when scholars attempt to calculate directly
the potential of UGS in improving air quality, the technical challenge of calculation due to the
diversity of, e.g., vegetation configuration, pollutant emissions, meteorology, and tree-health,
makes it hard to apply the finding directly to policy settings outside the study area (Baró et al.,
2014). Plus, this type of study still cannot adequately convert the UGS potential into cost-
benefit relative terms.
In summary, land resources were first commanded and later commodified for urban
development primarily as a resource of space by the Chinese urban planning system. Rapid
land commodification during the country’s rapid urbanisation process resulted in ambiguous
property rights arrangements of urban land in many Chinese cities. urban land scarcity became
increasingly evident particularly in coastal cities, prompting local officials and planners to
emphasise even more on achieving economic efficiency. Furthermore, quantification of the
ecological values of UGS, which can be an advantageous piece of information for
policymaking, has been a significant technical challenge. Finally, implementing UGS as a
measure to compensate the negative environmental and social externalities from urban
economic development might also lead to externalities of its own, such as gentrification.
50
2.2.4 The social dimension

Implementing UGS as a measure to compensate for the negative environmental and social
externalities from urban economic development might also lead to externalities of its own. For
example, property values can often be increased, intentionally or not, if a decent amount of
neighbourhood UGS is provided, resulting in gentrification 10 (Wolch et al., 2014; Cole et al.,
2017; Rigolon and Németh, 2018). Such urban gentrification often results in varies degrees of
social exclusion, especially those who are socio-economically underprivileged (Gould and
Lewis 2012; Seddon et al., 2020; Small et al., 2017). Most existing literature on the social
dimension of UGS focuses on Anglo-American settings and scientific studies on the social
impacts of UGS in China only emerged fairly recently (Wolch et al., 2014). The primary UGS
governance approach in China has been based on regulatory measures without proper
considerations of economic or social costs (Zhu and Zhou, 2015). Among the emerging
Chinese literature, the social value and performance of UGS, e.g., accessibility and equity,
have been identified as effective indicators of UGS quality, urban health and wellbeing (Yin et
al., 2008). UGS accessibility has widely accepted measurement metrics, for example, distance
to residential area or the average size of UGS per capita, but intangible concepts such as social
values are hard to measure and remain a knowledge gap regardless of contexts.11
2.2.5 The political dimension
2.2.5.1 International environmental and climate governance frameworks

Numerous international governance frameworks on climate and environment have highlighted
the nexus between climate change and urban health, including WHO guidelines, the United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and a few recent accords of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As early as 1986, the WHO
had launched the Healthy Cities program which is now promoted in thousands of cities
10
According to Investopedia.com, gentrification is “the transformation of a city neighbourhood from low value
to high value. Gentrification is also viewed as a process of urban development in which a neighbourhood or
portion of a city develops rapidly in a short period of time, often because of urban renewal programs. This process
is often marked by inflated home prices and displacement of a neighbourhood's previous residents.” Available at:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gentrification.asp#:~:text=Gentrification%20is%20a%20process%20of,c
osts%20brought%20about%20by%20gentrification.
11
Cities4Forests: Gaps in Knowledge. Available at: https://cities4forests.com/lg-urban-forests/gaps-in-
knowledge/
51
worldwide. The program aimed to set health as an overarching goal on the agendas of decision-
makers and to develop comprehensive local strategies for health protection and sustainable
development. The program functioned well in many cities, with communities gaining a greater
understanding of the nexus between health and environment and sectors creating partnerships
(Donchin et al., 2006). The 61st World Health Assembly in 2008 led to the creation of the
WHO Work Plan on Climate Change and Health, which focus on supporting member states to
protect health from climate change with four priorities, including raising awareness,
strengthening partnerships, enhancing scientific evidence as well as health systems (WHO,
2015). The WHO (2018) frames the Paris Agreement which launched in 2015 as ‘potentially
the strongest health agreement of the century.’12 The UNFCCC also recognises health as a
critical element in its legal framework. The Paris Agreement framed the right to health as a
fundamental human right in its preamble (United Nations, 2015a) and urges member state
governments to respect, promote, and consider their respective obligations on the right to health
when taking climate actions. Besides, the Paris Agreement recognises the central role of
mitigation actions and their co-benefits for adaptation, health, and sustainable development, if
enhanced response were taken before 2020 (UN, 2015b). Furthermore, it advocates for
connecting and defining health in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for both
mitigation and adaptation. The WHO also recognises valuable opportunities for improving
health through integrating climate mitigation and adaptation policies across sectors, as, e.g.,
energy supply and electricity production, households and buildings, transport as well as
agriculture and food systems (WHO, 2018b). In addition, the WHO identifies potential health
gains in infrastructure and governance improvement and recommended a Health in All Policies
(HiAP) approach. 13 As for the SDGs, Scholars assert that SDG 11 ‘Sustainable Cities and
Communities’ and SDG 3 ‘Health and Wellbeing’ have a quasi-unidirectional relationship, that
means, the condition of urban health is highly subjected to the quality of urban environment.
One critical target of SDG 11 is to integrate policies of climate mitigation and adaptation
substantially into urban development plans by 2020, making SDG 11 synergistic with SDG
13 ‘Climate Action.’ Furthermore, SDG 13 can also be synergistic with SDG 3, for a
climate-resilient urban development approach could improve environmental quality and
thereby support urban health and wellbeing (Nilsson et al., 2017). The synergy is affirmed
12
WHO. Climate Change – Overview. Available at: https://www.who.int/health-topics/climate-
change#tab=tab_1
13
WHO. Health in All Policies - Helsinki Statement Framework for Country Action. Available at:
https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/112636
52
by the World Bank Group.14 Similarly, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
2015-2030 also underlines the role of urban planning for the implementation of ecosystem-
based approaches at both global and regional levels to build resilience. 15
What is the role of UGS then? WHO has primarily emphasised the health potential of UGS,
while the SDGs as well as the New Urban Agenda (NUA) have primarily accentuated the
importance of UGS for equity, and the accords of the UNFCCC have focused on the technical
aspects of UGS as an NbS for climate adaptation (UNFCCC, 2015). The WHO’s review show
effectiveness of UGS on human health and the organisation has actively promoted UGS as a
tool for action for health and wellbeing (WHO Europe, 2016 & 2017). The SDGs, on the other
hand, have highlighted the role of UGS particularly in SDG 3 (health), SDG 11 (cities), and
SDG 13 (climate). The potential of UGS is emphasised primarily in SDG 11: “Making cities
sustainable… involves investment in public transport, creating green public spaces, and
improving urban planning and management in participatory and inclusive ways.” 16 One of the
targets of SDG 11 is to provide accessible and inclusive UGS universally by 2030,
particularly for the underprivileged population. Similarly, the NUA recommends cities to
conduct: “… participatory, promote civic engagement, engender a sense of belonging and
ownership among all their inhabitants, prioritise safe, inclusive, accessible, green and quality
public spaces that are friendly for families,…, recognising the specific needs of those in
vulnerable situations” (UN-Habitat, 2015: 13; 2016). Furthermore, the UNFCCC has
provided technical guidance on planning UGS for climate adaptation through case studies,
tools, and technical reports. 17 Notably, the Global Assessment Report produced by the
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
has also endorsed UGS as possible pathway to transform urban biodiversity (IPBES, 2019).
Together, these international governance frameworks on climate and environment have

advised cities to increase UGS as an NbS to climate impacts and have shown synergies and
14
World Bank Group Climate Change Action Plan. Available at: https://ccacoalition.org/en/resources/world-
bank-group-climate-action-plan
15
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 - Priority 2: Strengthening disaster risk
governance to manage disaster risk. P18. Available at: https://www.undrr.org/publication/sendai-
framework-disaster-risk-reduction-2015-2030
16
Sustainable Development Goals - Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Available at:
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/
17
Results from searching ‘Green Space’ on the UNFCCC webpage. Available at:
https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/nwpstaging/Pages/Search.aspx?k=green%20space
53
interconnections. For instance, SDGs 3, 11, and 13 could play synergistic roles for each
other, and UGS could act as a leverage point – adopting UGS as an NbS can contribute to
mitigating and adapting to climate impacts, as well as improve urban living environment,
thereby bringing health co-benefits. However, the potential of UGS to serve as a synergistic
leverage point to advance climate actions and improving urban health has not been
sufficiently highlighted.
2.2.5.2 National strategies and action plans

The nexus between climate change and health also has been well stated in national policies and
plans in China, particularly since China surpassed the U.S. and became the biggest CO 2 emitter
in 2007 and gained international attention on the urban environmental quality from hosting the
International Olympic Games in 2008. The central government reframed environmental quality
as a public good, claimed responsibility for provision, and did place the focus of climate action
in urban areas. However, the proposition of UGS as an NbS to climate change and health
problems is still substantially lacking. The first national action plan to address the environment-
health nexus is the National Environmental Health Action Plan (2007–2015) coordinated by
the Ministry of Health and 16 other ministerial agencies. 18 The Plan identifies environmental
degradation, loss of ecological balance, and subsequent health impacts as key constraints to
economic growth and societal development and seeks to establish more people-oriented
governance in the process of tackling them. The Plan also proposes action to focus on
environmental health impact assessments, early warning systems as well as emergency
response plans. The first national plan to focus on climate change adaptation, then, is the
National Strategy for Climate Change Adaptation, which debuted during the Warsaw COP 19
in 2013.19 It frames human health as one of the seven crucial tasks and outlines a systematic
transition framework which focus on climate change assessment and adaptation planning on
both national and city levels. The Strategy sets the goal to protect health from increasing risks
of many diseases, particularly temperature-sensitive illnesses, and post-disaster infectious
diseases. In the same year (2013), the Action Plan on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution
18
State Council of China. 2007. Notice on Issuing the National Environment and Health Action Plan (in Chinese:
关于印发《国家环境与健康行动计划》的通知 ). Available at: http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2007-
11/16/content_807439.htm
19
State Council of China. 2013. National strategy for climate change adaptation (in Chinese: 国家适应气候变化
战略). Available at: https://www.gov.cn/gzdt/att/att/site1/20131209/001e3741a2cc140f6a8701.pdf
54
was approved. It is the first plan to frame decent environmental quality as a public good and as
a responsibility of local governments, and to set ambitious, specific targets for air pollution
reduction. China moved forward with greater determination on climate change actions with the
National Plan on Climate Change (2014–2020) and the Action Plan for Urban Adaptation to
Climate Change 2014, both of which were made under ‘Ecological Civilisation,’ the country’s
emerging national environmental governance framework. With the latter, notably, China
placed the focus of climate change adaptation in urban areas, concerning the concentrated
health and economic impacts.
Similarly, China set the first national medium- to long-term action plan focusing on promoting
healthy lifestyles, improving health services and the industry with the Healthy China 2030
Initiative launched in 2016.20 The Plan defines health as a basic condition for socio-economic
development and improvement in national health governance as a proactive contribution to the
2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. In actionable terms, Healthy China 2030 seeks to
resonate with the HiAP approach of WHO. The Healthy China 2030 also gained an urban focus
with the Shanghai Consensus on Healthy Cities 2016 approved the International Mayors
Forum.21
In summary, numerous international governance frameworks on climate and environment have

highlighted the nexus, including WHO guidelines, the SDGs, and recent accords of the
UNFCCC. Together, these frameworks have advised cities to increase UGS as an NbS to
climate impacts and have shown synergies and interconnections. However, the potential of
UGS to serve as a synergistic leverage point both to advance climate actions and improve
urban health has not been sufficiently highlighted. Similarly, in national policies and plans
in China, the nexus between climate change and health also has been well stated. The central
government reframed environmental quality as a public good, claimed responsibility for
provision, and did place the focus of climate action in urban areas. However, the proposition
of UGS as an NbS to climate change and health problems is still substantially lacking in these
action plans.
20
WHO. 2016. Health Promotion: Healthy China 2030 (from vision to action). Available at:
https://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/9gchp/healthy-china/en/
21
WHO. 2016. Health Promotion - Shanghai Consensus on Healthy Cities 2016. Available at:
https://www.who.int/healthpromotion/conferences/9gchp/healthy-city-pledge/en/
55
2.3 The Institutional Perspective
2.3.1 Relevance of the institutional perspective

Institutional elements and capacities, e.g., the behaviour, values, social norms and political
interests of key actors, authorities and their legal and regulatory responsibilities, play a critical
role in promoting the implementation of urban development and climate adaptation plans
(Berkhout, 2012; Dietz et al., 2008; Jim 2013; Klein et al., 2015; Mimura et al., 2015; Moser
and Ekstrom, 2010; Ostrom, 2014; Revi et al., 2014; Romero-lankao and Wilhelmi, 2018).
Studies have documented institutional barriers to planning and implementing climate
adaptation, e.g., contesting values, conflicting objectives, tensions, and trade-offs between
different policy agendas and priorities (Adger et al., 2009; Storbjörk and Hedrén, 2011). In
addition to the ignorance of the influence of institutional elements, the scientific challenge to
capture institutional dynamics has also been a reason why urban plans often failed when put
into practice (Jim, 2013; Zhao, 2005). In the case of NbS, the lack of capacities and capabilities
of local authorities has been identified as a major knowledge gap (Knoblauch et al., n.d.).
Complexities of governance networks of multiple actors and institutions are proven barriers of
adaptation (Carlsson-Kanyama et al., 2013; Juhola and Westerhoff, 2011; Sosa-Rodriguez,
2014). The difference in governance approaches, e.g., in how to create adaptation plans, has
concrete implications for adaptation outcome and merits further analysis (Bai et al., 2016 &
2018; Mimura et al., 2015).
2.3.2 Critiques on various governance approaches
2.3.2.1 Top-down and bottom-up governance

The two main tendencies - top-down and bottom-up - have marked the history of urban
planning in the past seven decades with an overall shift from top-down towards bottom-up
(Healey et al., 1982). Despite so, the appreciation of technical expertise, which is a
characteristic of the top-down approach, has been increased (Pissourios, 2014). A top-down
approach is one that originates from “the top,” and is often directed based on decision-making
from “the top,” whilst a bottom-up approach describes data collected and processed, decisions
made and acted upon at the local level (Nicholls et al., 2015). In urban planning, the top-down
56
governance approach offers advantages of efficiency and economies of scale (Nicholls et al.,
2015; Pissourios, 2014). In climate change adaptation, national governments have primarily
assumed a coordinating role of adaptation actions for subnational and local level governments,
including information provision, strategies incentivization, legal and policy frameworks for
implementation and supervision, actions to protect vulnerable groups and providing financial
support for sub-level governments (Mimura et al., 2015). National level governments overall
have played a key role in climate change adaptation planning and implementation, and
subnational governments have played a complementary role to national governments that are
reflective of the governance structure (Uk Climate Impacts Programme, 2007). The top-down
governance approach has received criticism for its tendency to prioritise, overly or sometimes
even solely appreciate professional and scientific “expert” knowledge, thereby neglecting local
actors and their knowledge and needs, and denying citizen participation (Sabatier, 1986; Smith,
2008).
As a response, the bottom-up governance approach has gained popularity over the years for
appreciating and incorporating local people and their knowledge, skills, needs, and experiences
into decision-making (Smith, 2008). In climate change adaptation planning and
implementation, local governments are increasingly recognised as playing a central role in
addressing the challenges (Blanco et al., 2009; Matthews, 2012; Sanchez-Rodriguez, 2009).
Local authorities can play a significant role in removing barriers for climate adaptation by
realigning the incentives of individuals with societal goals, providing the public goods needed
for adaptation, or helping with behavioural and cognitive biases (Chambwera et al., 2015). In
urban planning, the bottom-up approach is often considered better or more accurate, thanks to
the possibility of immediate and small-scale data collection reporting, thereby can be more
cost-effective (Nicholls et al., 2015). The bottom-up approach is sometimes referred to as the
community-based approach and is endorsed by, e.g., the UNFCCC, for its potential in climate
change adaptation and resilience-building (IPCC, 2014).
Despite growing popularity, the bottom-up approach functions well typically at a small and
local scale and has limited capability in coping with complexities of large scales (Pissourios,
2014). Besides, bottom-up governance approach could fall short for occasions where there is
no ‘bottom level,’ for instance, a new settlement or a large city plan expansion with no actual
residents yet (Pissourios, 2014). In climate change adaptation, local agencies and planners are
57
often confronted by the technical challenge to obtain credible data of local vulnerabilities and
potential impacts, as well as to understand the information properly (Mimura et al., 2015). For
many urban governments, how to cope with the high complexity of climate change impacts
across levels within the conventional, often siloed government structures and operational
culture across countries remains an operationalisation challenge (Mimura et al., 2015).
Extensive literature has highlighted the need for a comprehensive, institutionally innovative
combination of the top-down and bottom-up approaches, as well as local horizontal network
governance approach, to facilitate learning and coordinated actions across multiple authorities
(Lowe et al., 2009; Mimura et al., 2015; Pissourios, 2014).
2.3.2.2 Multi-level governance

Compared to the top-down governance approach highlighted by a command-and-comply trait,
multi-level governance (MLG) is conducted through more sophisticated rules of power
distribution, responsibility sharing, as well as mechanisms and strategies of policy-making
(Daniell and Kay, 2017). Multi-level governance is an approach with established arrangements
for multiple actors to participate in policy-making activities within and across various politico-
administrative institutions at different territorial levels (Stephenson, 2013). “Multi-level
governance” and “cross-level coordination” are interchangeable references of the same
governance approach. One of the earliest and most prominent practice to date in multi-level
governance is perhaps the European Integration following the Maastricht Treaty that entered
in force in 1992 (Marks, 1993), which established the ‘subsidiarity’ principle particularly in
environmental policy, a gesture of political desire to implement policy action at the local level
if needed (Golub, 1996). Since the emergence of the term, research on multi-level governance
has increased over the past three decades, particularly in the field of governance of resources
and services which are non-jurisdictional or produce cross-border externalities, such as climate
change impacts (Quilligan, 2008). Similarly, global governance can be considered as a form of
multi-level governance, for its entirety of political institutions are put forward to de-globalise
and to solve specific national and regional problems, or to provide transnational common goods
and services (Zürn, 2012).
Scholars consider the multi-level governance approach as having the potential to create positive
incentives for sustainable use of resources because of its characteristic of shared responsibility,
thereby facilitate learning and adaptation that are context specific, and based on the values and
58
mutual trust of local actors (Adger et al., 2005; Armitage, 2007; Newig and Fritsch, 2009). A
wide range of research, from forest management to urban planning to climate change mitigation
and adaptation, widely affirms the need to establish multilevel institutional coordination
mechanisms between different political and administrative levels for effective implementation
of policies (Mimura et al., 2015; Revi et al., 2014). Research show that factors such as the
consistency of legal frameworks, power distribution, competences, and information flows, are
crucial for increasing trust and empowering local actors for policy integration and
implementation (Juhola, 2016; Ravikumar et al., 2015). For example, empirical examinations
on climate change mitigation and adaptation policy-making processes in land use sector in
Brazil and Indonesia reveal that, cross-level trust building and collaboration between national
and sub-national levels remain challenging, mostly due to power being disproportionately
distributed across governance levels (Di Gregorio et al., 2019). Yet, how exactly political
power from higher level impacts the learning and integration of policy-making processes across
levels are not yet well understood (Bache, 2012; Doherty and Schroeder, 2011; Marquardt,
2017). In addition, governments at different levels often have different preferences or priorities:
national level governments engage more extensively in mitigation and local governments focus
more on adaptation (Measham et al., 2011).
2.3.2.3 Collaborative and participatory governance

Literature on collaborative governance emerged in recent decades to describe the approach in
which public and private stakeholders are brought together for consensus building and planning
for environmental management (Ansell and Gash, 2007). “Collaborative” and “collective” are
interchangeable terms. Contrary to the declining trend of the commanding style in policy
processes, collaborative governance relies on face-to-face dialogue, trust building, and the
development of commitment and shared understanding to prevail (Ansell and Gash, 2007).
Participatory governance seeks to enable citizens to participate in policy processes (Fischer,

2012). “Participatory,” “democratic,” and “inclusive” are interchangeable terms to describe
governance approaches that emphasise citizen participation and explore aspects related to
citizen competence, empowerment, capacity building, and their impacts on the service delivery,
equity, and political representation (Ron, 2012). Scholars, as well as international organisations,
recommend the participatory governance approach for climate change adaptation, as the
approach not only does justice to civil rights, but also facilitates the incorporation of local
59
resources such as information, knowledge, and finance (Agarwal, 2009; Fritz et al., 2019;
Tompkins and Eakin, 2012; UNDP, 2010; World Development Report, 2010). For example,
many early case studies on the governance of forest and water resources in Nepal, Japan, Indian
and Sri Lanka prove that community-participated governance delivers sustainable outcomes
(Ostrom, 2010). Despite so, governments often have contradictory attitudes towards
participatory governance approach, for citizen participation can inform decision-making but in
the meantime, it increases uncertainty and costs in policy-making and implementation
processes (Phillips, 2012; Ron, 2012).
The two governance approaches share the characteristics of democratic nature and potential to
improve governments’ capacity for problem-solving in the long term. In comparison, the
collaborative approach tends to demonstrate higher potential in improving governments’
capacity to solve problems as it emphasises more on equal stakeholder collaboration; whilst
the participatory governance approach focuses more on the degree of democratic contribution
in policy-making processes (Papadopoulos, 2012). Research shows that collaborations with the
private sector in climate adaptation can increase time and economic efficiency (Engle and
Lemos, 2010; Tompkins and Eakin, 2012). Research on irrigation systems in Nepal and forests
around the world suggest that the key to succeeding in participatory or collaborative
governance is communication (Ostrom, 2010).
2.3.2.4 The emerging ‘urban’ focus in governance literature
Urban governments are responsible for a substantial share of essential infrastructure and
service provision, therefore, their decisions are crucial to the interface between urban economic
development and environmental change (Bulkeley and Kern, 2006; Hall et al., 2013). The
importance of urban governments has been highlighted by increasing literature in the last two
decades. Between 1990 and 2015, the literature focused on the ‘urban’ them increased by 14
times roughly (Bai et al., 2018). Particularly, scholars are seeking a greater understanding of
the continuous global and local urbanisation processes to resolve emergent, complex
environmental and climate change problems (Wolfram et al., 2016). Scholars view cities as a
crucial actor for addressing climate change impacts and achieving the Paris Agreement (Bai et
al., 2018). Often, urban governments face the challenge of balancing the so-called traditional
push and pull factors, namely in between 1) short-term priorities of economic growth and
60
competitiveness, and 2) long-term commitment to restore the urban environment and address
climate change impacts (Bai et al., 2014; Leichenko, 2011; Romero-Lankao et al., 2017).
Besides, scholarly interests on establishing “urban” as a scientific discipline based on complex
systems sciences are also on the rise. This new discipline of urban sciences views cities as self-
organised, adaptive complex socioecological systems or sociotechnical systems (McPhearson
et al., 2016; Portugali, 2006). This discipline considers urbanisation as a multifaceted
phenomenon that encompasses profound changes in demographic, land-use and other resource
consumption in environmental, social, cultural, and institutional spheres across local, regional,
national and global scales (Bai et al., 2014; Friedmann, 2006; Bai et al., 2018).
2.3.3 Major institutional challenges in urban governance, globally and in China

Studies on how institutional dimensions limit or enable policy-making and implementation for
climate change adaptation at different levels and in different sectors in both developing and
developed countries have increased in recent years (Biesbroek et al., 2013; Engle and Lemos,
2010; Glaas and Juhola, 2013; Moser and Ekstrom, 2010; Rodima-Taylor et al., 2012). Most
of the literature has reported on how current institutional arrangements restrict the
mainstreaming of climate adaptation across contexts and scales (Biesbroek et al., 2013;
Mimura et al., 2015). While middle- and high-income countries report more on institutional
barriers such as professional silos, low-income developing countries report on weak
institutional environments (Mimura et al., 2015). Several international studies have shown that
silos and compartmentalisation between local governments and administrations due to
differences in internal norms, values, and priorities are the barriers to mainstreaming climate
adaptation policies (van den Berg and Coenen, 2012; Wilby and Keenan, 2012). For example,
studies on water management in multiple municipalities across the world suggest that the
current institutional structure and regulatory policies are poorly matched for achieving urban
climate adaptation objectives (Aylett, 2015; Eisenack and Stecker, 2012; Herrfahrdt-Pähle
2013).
In China, rapid economic growth and urban expansion have further highlighted the institutional
rigidity and mismatch. Studies have identified evidence of responsibility overlaps and policy
contradictions due to the silos and compartmentalisation in the administrative system (OECD,
2005). In the case of building smart eco-cities in China, the environmental and social objectives
61
became harder to achieve as the projects were implemented within the conventional
institutional structure. The conventional institutions rely primarily on administrative means of
implementation conducted by technical experts and officials and commit more to economic
and technological solutions, rather than involving private actors and citizens and focusing on
social and environmental well-being (Chai, 2015; Xie, 2019).
For both developed and developing countries, scholars indicate at least three key areas where
institutional arrangements can be improved to facilitate the making and implementation of
climate adaptation plans: 1) institutional coordination between different political and
administrative levels, 2) the horizontal interplay within local governments, and 3) the
coordination between formal governmental and administrative agencies and social and private
stakeholders (van den Berg and Coenen, 2012; Engle and Lemos, 2010; Jonsson et al., 2012;
Preston et al., 2013; Robinson and Berkes, 2011; Runhaar et al., 2012; Wilby and Keenan,
2012). While the institutional arrangements in current urban governance across country
contexts vary, good governance should facilitate policy and decision processes across public,
private and civil actors and foster the co-production of knowledge, learning and action over
time (Revi et al., 2014; World Bank, 2017).
62
CHAPTER III
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter begins by clarifying the semantic differences of some key terms used in this
research between the international scientific literature (as reviewed above, in English) and the
language of the empirical research context (Chinese). It then follows with the overarching
theoretical framework of governing UGS as a common-pool resource (CPR) for climate
resilience, urban health and wellbeing across scales and levels. After providing an overview of
the theoretical framework, it follows by a section which interprets UGS as part of the urban
social-ecological system (SES). Furthermore, to understand the stocks and flows of UGS in an
urban social-ecological system and how to manage them, the common-pool resource theory is
introduced as the main theory. This chapter ends with an analytical tool to operationalise the
theory in the empirical case studies beginning from Chapter V.
3.1 Semantics Matter

So far, key concepts such as urban green spaces (UGS), governance, institutions, and social
costs and relevant literature have been reviewed without careful examination of the semantics.
It is necessary to zoom into the semantics now, at the beginning of constructing a theoretical
framework, as they matter for the empirical case study analysis, which is context-sensitive
politically and culturally. Table 4 presents several examples of concepts, the meanings of
which differ in English and Chinese. For example, in Chinese, to govern: 治理 (pronounce as
zhì lǐ) means “to treat and to organise”, which can be used not only in social or political terms
but also in many other fields, including medical and agricultural fields, a disease, or a type of
pests. In comparison, in English, the term to govern applied more strictly in social or political
terms and targets exclusively items, structures, and forms created by human. Another example
is the term urban green spaces, the focal object of this research, which refers mainly to its
functions as services. While the term in Chinese: 城市绿地 (chéng shì lǜ dì) literally means
“urban green land”, which emphasises its land property feature. A third example is the term
institutions, which could be used to refer to an established/formalised practice. The
corresponding term for institutions in Chinese is 制度 (zhì dù), which literally means “a crafted
measurement, degree, or extent”. It may be argued that the reference for institutions in Chinese
63
contains greater meticulousness. One might have similar observations on the term citizens,
which corresponds to four different terms in Chinese: 公民 (gōng mín) - a person who has the
legal right to belong to a particular country, 居民(jū mín) - residents, 市民(shì mín) - people
who live in a city, and 公众 (gōng zhòng) - public audience. This brief showcase of semantics
serves as a teaser of contextualisation in this thesis and a foundation for building the theoretical
framework.
Term in
Term in English Meaning Chinese and Meaning
Pronunciation
To control and direct the public business
Govern 治理 zhì lǐ To treat and to organise
of a country, city, group of people, etc.
1. The amount of money that you need The foundation needed to
成本 chéng běn
to buy, make, or do something establish (something)
Costs
2. The effort, loss or damage that is The sacrifice made to
代价 dài jià
involved to do or achieve something achieve (something)
A component of “green infrastructure”
Urban green and an important part of public open 城市绿地 Urban green land
spaces spaces and common services provided chéng shì lǜ dì (property)
by a city
A crafted measurement,
1. An established/formalised practice 制度 zhì dù
degree/extent
Institutions
2. An organisation founded for a certain A social, economic, or
体制 tǐ zhì
purpose political system
1. A person who has the legal right to
公民 gōng mín =
belong to a particular country
2. A person who lives in a particular
居民 jū mín Residents
place
Citizen
/ 市民 shì mín People who live in a city
公众
/ Public audience
gōng zhòng
A state of human society that is very The total wealth created
developed and organised by human beings,
Civilisation A society, its culture, and its way of life 文明 wén míng especially spiritual wealth,
during a particular period of time or in a such as literature, art,
particular part of the world education, science
Table 4: Semantics matter: examples of key terms for this research and their meanings in
English and in Chinese
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3.2 Overview of the Theoretical Framework

Having established the semantic foundation of key concepts used in this research, a theoretical
framework outlining the essence of UGS as part of the urban social-ecological systems and
centralising the common-pool resource theory is created to understand three empirical UGS
governance cases in the natural, social-economic, political, and cultural context of Guangzhou,
China, as shown in Figure 3. In a nutshell, UGS are essential part of the urban social-ecological
systems, the stock and flows of which are critical for the overall stability of the system,
including climate resilience, and health and wellbeing. To manage the stock and flows of UGS
as a resource, considering its high subtractability and low excludability, it is best governed as
a common-pool resource. The property rights arrangements among the actors of UGS
governance influence the transaction costs, which influence actors´ interactions, ultimately
leading to formal and informal changes in UGS institutions.
The meanings of each box of the theoretical framework (see Figure 3) are as the follows:
• The upper left box shows that governments and non-state actors relate and interact with
each other or within themselves through formal and informal institutions, as reasoned
in Sections 3.4.3.1 Governance and actors, and 3.4.3.2 Institutions.
• The upper middle left box shows that green infrastructure (GI) includes Nature-based
Solutions (NbS), which includes Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), as reasoned in
Section 3.3 Urban Social-Ecological Systems.
• The upper middle right box shows that property rights bundles constitute transaction
costs. The way different property rights are bundled together influences transaction
costs, as reasoned in Sections 3.4.3.3 Property rights bundles and 3.4.3.4 Transaction
costs.
• The upper right box shows that urban green spaces (UGS) are a type of urban common-
pool resources (CPR), the excludability of which is low, and the subtractability is high.
As reasoned in Section 3.4.2 Why urban green spaces are common-pool resources,
UGS provides a wide range of ecosystem services for all urban residents. The
subtractability of UGS increases as urban population density grow, and land-driven
economic development advances. The availability of UGS depends upon the total
amount of urban land, which often has a geographical boundary.
65
• The lower right box shows that the status of complex ecological systems is dependent
on its level of urban health and wellbeing and climate resilience, as reasoned in Section
3.3 Urban Social Ecological Systems.
• The lower left box shows that institutional change. The types of institutional change
(means and ends) and the mechanisms (e.g., normative, legal, formal, informal) are
reasoned in Section 3.4.3.5 Institutional change.
• The layers of the boxes mean different levels and scales, see reasonings about the levels
and scales of institutions in Section 3.4.3.2 Institutions.
Figure 3: Theoretical framework: Governance of urban green spaces as a common-pool

resources for climate resilience, health and wellbeing across scales and levels
The causal relations between the boxes of this theoretical framework are as follows:
• The upper part shows that government and non-state actors interact and together govern
UGS (which is a CPR), through applying EbA (a type of NbS, which is based on
utilising GI) and arranging property rights bundles (to manage transaction costs).
• The right part shows that the results of UGS governance or intervention influence the
status of resilience to climate change, urban health and wellbeing, thus influence the
stability/quality of the urban social-ecological systems.
66
• The lower part shows that the degrees of resilience to climate change, health and
wellbeing are end goals that contribute to institutional change.
• The middle right part shows that changing how property rights are bundled together
constitute legal changes in the institutions, or the institutional change of the means.
• The middle-left part: Applying NbS contributes to achieving the end goal of climate
adaptation and resilience enhancement. Changing the way NbS is perceived is a
normative or informal institutional change, as reasoned in Section 3.4.3.5 Institutional
change.
• The left part: institutional change might further influence the relationships between
governments and non-state actors, through legal or normative measures, which might
change the means or the ends of the interactions between governments and non-state
actors.
The next Section outlines the essence of UGS as part of the urban social-ecological systems,
in which trendy policy concepts such as GI, NbS, and EbA are also reexamined.
3.3 Urban Social-Ecological Systems

UGS, such as parks, woods and artificial meadows, ecological corridors, urban wetlands, and
other natural ecosystems, are an integral part of the urban natural ecosystems. According to
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) global initiative,22 UGS provide four
essential types of ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural
services. Provisioning services include the provision of food, fresh water, medicinal and raw
material resources. Regulating services include local climate regulation, air purification,
carbon sequestration and storage, moderation of extreme events, wastewater treatment, soil
fixation, and pollination. Supporting services include habitats for species and maintenance of
genetic diversity. Cultural services include recreation, mental and physical health, tourism,
aesthetic appreciation and inspiration for culture, art and design, spiritual experience, and sense
of place. In general, the regulating and cultural services play a more significant role for cities
than the provisioning or supporting services (Larondelle et al., 2014).
22
http://www.teebweb.org/resources/ecosystem-services/
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The work which involves ecosystem services in research, policy and practice spheres have been
popularly referred to through various terms, such as green infrastructure (GI), nature-based
solutions (NbS), ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) in recent years, particularly in urban
climate change and sustainability governance, although they have mostly been applied with a
rather utilitarian, human-nature dichotomic gesture (Welden et al., 2021). The European
Environment Agency defines GI as ‘a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural
areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of
ecosystem services’ in both rural and urban settings. 23 ICLEI – Local Governments for
Sustainability defines NbS as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or
modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively,
simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.” (ICLEI, 2017). In the
Nature-based Solutions Initiative of the University of Oxford, NbS is defined as “actions that
work with and enhance nature to help address societal challenges.” 24 While the IPCC
Assessment Report 5 Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability lists many
types of EbA options, including soil conservation, ecological restoration, afforestation and
reforestation, GI and ecological corridors, fisheries control and co-management, seed and gene
banks (IPCC, 2014). The conceptual scope of these three terms is: GI > NbS > EbA, as GI
refers broadly to all plant species and the subecosystems that thrive around them, while NbS
focuses on instrumentalising certain subecosystems to solve problems, and EbA even much
more specific. These definitions and references share the common wish for yielding the most
benefits from the ecosystems possible to tackle natural or man-made environmental challenges
and serve people better, which shows an instrumental or technocratic approach to various
extents. Besides, some scholars argue that the definition of NbS is rather vague, overarching
with other similar concepts and therefore impractical (Nesshöver et al., 2017), and that the
ecosystem services that the NbS concept is based on are not always beneficial (e.g., human
allergic reactions to pollens and insects) (Lyytimäki, 2013).
For some reason, these terms recently gained popularity particularly in urban policy and
practice. The GI approach is endorsed by the C40 City Climate Leadership Group for climate
23
European Commission, 2013, Green Infrastructure (GI) — Enhancing Europe’s Natural Capital – COM (2013)
149. Available at: https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/sustainability-transitions/urban-environment/urban-green-
infrastructure/what-is-green-infrastructure
24
The Nature-based Solutions Initiative: What are Nature-based Solutions? Available at:
https://www.naturebasedsolutionsinitiative.org/what-are-nature-based-solutions/
68
change adaptation. The emerging concept Sponge City and recent application of nature-based
flood water treatment schemes in Chinese cities is one type of NbS. It means that the city can
be like a sponge and has good "flexibility" in adapting to environmental changes and
responding to natural disasters. Absorb, store, seep, and purify water from time to time, and
"release" the stored water when needed and make use of it. The concept Sponge City resonates
with two other concepts – GI and Low Impact Development (LID) technology (Jia et al., 2017).
The term LID refers to engineering practices that "use or mimic natural processes that result in
infiltration, evapotranspiration or use of stormwater in order to protect water quality and
25
associated aquatic habitat.” The Global Assessment Report produced by the
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
has also endorsed UGS as possible pathway to transform urban biodiversity and as a urban
nature solutions to climate change impacts (IPBES, 2019).
While these terms might be in various ways limited, they share a common intention of trying
to operationalise what essentially are complex ecological systems to address these
interconnected environmental problems for greater social wellbeing in less artificial manners.
Essentially, urban areas are hot spots of complex and dynamic interactions across ecological,
social, cultural and economic systems, which scholars have referred to as ‘urban social-
ecological systems’ (SES) (Elmqvist et al., 2019; Frank, 2017; Li et al., 2014; Liu and
Gatzweiler, 2020; McPhearson et al., 2016). This definition is more holistic compared to the
previously mentioned ones – GI, NbS, and EbA, and conveys the image of nature-human
coexistence as integrated, complex living organisms (Kuzevanov and Gubiy, 2014). UGS is
part of the natural ecosystem, which, together with man-made ecosystems, compose the
entirety of an urban social-ecological system. As Figure 4 shows, if managed by collaborative
agents (people and organisations) through integrative institutions,26 a diverse range of services
produced by both the natural and man-made ecosystems will together contribute to enhancing
the climate resilience and human wellbeing of the entire urban social-ecological system; while
segregative institutions would do the opposite (Armson et al., 2012; Hartig et al., 2014; Panno
25
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). n.d.a. “Urban Runoff: Low Impact Development” Available at:
https://www.epa.gov/nps/urban-runoff-low-impact-development
26
According to Hagedorn’s (2008; 2015) ‘Institutions of Sustainability’ theory, institutions can also be
distinguished as integrative institutions and segregative institutions. Integrative institutions are the ones that can
reduce unintended externalities that burden the health and wellbeing of vulnerable groups in society or the
environment. For more, please see Section 3.4.3.5 Institutional change.
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et al., 2017; Tyler and Moench, 2012; Zölch et al., 2017). Understanding the essence of UGS
as part of the complex urban social-ecological systems is critical to see where UGS stays a
resource in the entire system, how its stock flows within the system, and how to manage it.
Figure 4: Urban social-ecological systems and effects of integrative and segregative

institutions
Source: adapted from Liu and Gatzweiler 2020.
3.4 The Common-Pool Resource (CPR) Theory

This section zooms in to establish the theoretical foundations for understanding how to manage
urban green spaces (UGS) as a resource as a common-pool resource (CPR). It is composed of
four parts:
1) What is a common-pool resource (CPR)
2) Why UGS are CPRs
3) Critical elements to be considered in CPR governance, and
4) an analytical framework to analyse how these elements determine CPR governance in
empirical settings.
In a nutshell, the CPR theory contradicts Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons” model, and
convenes that: compared to state-dominated public or market-oriented private approaches,
goods that are non-excludable to community members but are rivalrous in consumption can be
governed more sustainably in small scales and through collectively-designed rules including
adequately arranged property rights, monitoring, and sanctions, despite that humans are
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supposedly selfish and boundedly rational (Ostrom, 1990, 2005; Schlager, 2004). The CPR
theory is developed mainly by Nobel Economics Laureate of 2009, Professor Elinor Ostrom,
together with her collaborators, backed by decades of empirical research on resource
governance across contexts (e.g., see Chhatre and Agrawal, 2009; Coleman and Steed, 2009;
Gibson et al., 2005; Ostrom and Nagendra, 2006).
3.4.1 What is a common-pool resource (CPR)?
In Ostrom´s own words, CPR refers to “a natural or man-made resource system that is
sufficiently large as to make it costly, but not impossible to exclude potential beneficiaries from
obtaining benefits from its use” (Ostrom, 1990: 30). Ostrom (1990) established the concept of
CPR to improve the broad distinction of goods as being public or private goods (see Figure 5).
Essentially, all economic goods and services can be distinguished by two dimensions:
excludability and subtractability. Excludability refers the quality of excluding users from
consuming certain goods, while subtractability refers to the quality of rivalry for one user vs.
for other users, or in other words, the impact of the consumption by one user on the quantity
available for other users. Public goods, also referred to as ‘social goods’ or ‘collective
consumption goods’, are those that have both low excludability and low subtractability
(Samuelson and Buchanan,1965; Bowen, 1943; Musgrave, 1939; Samuelson, 1954 & 1955).
This means, the cost of extending the service of such goods to an additional person is zero, and
it is impossible or expensive to exclude individuals from enjoying, or can only exclude them
at a very high exclusion cost (Nordhaus, 2009). Air, water, and soil are typical examples of
public goods. Peace and security of a community are also public goods. Private goods, on the
contrary, have high excludability and high subtractability. This means the governance options
are rather limited to individuals or groups that own them, with little possibility for governance
disputes.
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Figure 5: Four basic types of goods
Source: adapted from Ostrom, 2005: 24
Essentially, the goal of governing public goods is to achieve a balance between the supply and
demand ends of goods and services. This balance builds on four assumptions: 1) perfect
information flow, 2) zero opportunity costs, 3) zero stock externalities, and 4) rational decision-
making (Nordhaus, 2009; Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010). However, neither state or market
governance approaches to public goods have always been successful in addressing social and
environmental externalities due to the following factors:
1) Information mismatch. The Laissez-faire (French: “allow to do”) market economy theory
assumes buyers and sellers are completely informed about a transaction they make, but in fact,
information flow in any real-world transactions, in general, is imperfect.
2) Opportunity costs, which refers to ‘the value of the most valuable good or service forgone’
(Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010: 139). For example, deforestation of a forest area rich of
biodiversity for timber bears the opportunity cost of missing the carbon sequestration and
biodiversity maintenance services that the forest has to offer. A growth-oriented and high-
emission urban development model bears the opportunity costs of public health and wellbeing,
quality of the urban environment, and urban biodiversity.
3) Stock externality, which refers to the impact of negative externalities that accumulates over
time (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010). For example, Coastal land resources are a good
example. Coastal erosion due to sea-level rise and intensified storms are results of global
warming. They affect both the quality and the quantity of coastal ecosystems and coastal
population negatively, both of which accumulate slowly over time. The consequences of
coastal erosion – loss of coastal biodiversity and human settlements – are often long-lasting
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and maybe even irreversible. The stock externalities of public goods also project uncertainties
into time, spatial, and political dimensions (Nordhaus, 2009). On the time dimension, for
example, it is nearly impossible to estimate the impact of global warming on coastal land
resources by 2100 accurately. On the spatial and political dimensions, for example, it is
challenging to estimate the impact of China’s CO 2 emission on the potential flash flood
damages in the Himalaya region. National governments have the legal and political powers to
arrange institutions to internalise negative externalities, but only within their spatial/territorial
boundaries.
4) Bounded rationality (Ostrom, 1990; Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010). Arrow (1974: 16)
argues that economists often “…thinks of himself as the guardian of rationality, the ascriber of
rationality to others, and the prescriber of rationality to the social world.” In reality, economists
and government officials make judgements and decisions the same way as any lay people in
imperfect conditions that prevent them from thinking things through, such as constraints of
earlier choices, undiscovered, ignored, or misunderstood facts (Rothman, 2019). Simon (1956
& 1990) refers to this imperfect human cognitive conditions as bounded rationality. Both
market and state approaches tend to function with rational assumptions about information flow
and propensity for efficiency, which led to the spillover of externalities (Chambwera et al.,
2015; Kostka, 2015; Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010). The failures to govern many natural
resources sustainably largely are due to the inadequate consideration of the high subtractability
of many resources, and the above assumptions taken by the conventional state-oriented or
market-oriented approaches.
Although Ostrom (1990) came to create the term common-pool resources (CPR), the notion of
‘commons’ was first defined by Garrett Hardin through his notable essay The Tragedy of the
Commons. Nonetheless, Hardin´s attempt has been widely criticised for being simplistic and
proposing market-oriented solutions which were not able to mitigate social and environmental
externalities. Compared to public goods such as peace and security of a community, or
knowledge, CPRs have the same non-excludability feature as public goods, however, unlike
public goods, the subtractability of CPRs is high (again, see Figure 5). Ostrom distinguishes
many non-excludable but rivalry goods, such as forests, water systems, fisheries, and the global
atmosphere as CPRs. These natural resources, once used by one user, inevitably becomes less
available for others; and yet, they are of immense importance for human survival on Earth.
Furthermore, both public goods and CPRs face the problems of free-riding or opportunism.
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The costs of excluding other potential users for both public goods and CPRs are high (Ostrom,
1990). Despite facing similar free-riding issues, CPRs are, however, more precarious than
public goods, as the subtractability of CPRs is lower than that of public goods. Studies on the
commons emerged in the mid-1980s as the International Association for the Study of the
Commons was established to dedicate on this rising subject. The field gained accelerated
interests, particularly as Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009. Since then, studies
using the Commons lens has propagated from the initial focus on the environment or natural
resources, such as forestry and irrigation systems, to a diverse range of items such as
conservation sites, climate change, and many other non-traditional CPRs (Wang, 2017). The
commons perspective in this thesis is particularly relevant in the context of global climate
change impacts and sustainability challenges, which are complex and uncertain, with diffused
benefits which discount in the long-term, and transcend sovereign boundaries.
3.4.2 Why urban green spaces are common-pool resources?

UGS can be considered as a type of CPRs crucial for urban health and climate resilience. as
Wendell Berry (1987) portraits: “… is a commonwealth: a place, a resource, an economy. It
answers the needs, practical as well as social and spiritual, of its members – among them the
need to need one another.” Viewing UGS resources from the Commons perspective responds
to the big picture in which not only the needs of the current generation are considered but also
those of the future generations. UGS such as urban parks, urban wetlands, ecological corridors,
and street trees, have both the low excludability and high subtractability characteristics. UGS
users are urban residents who use them for physical exercises, better air, water and soil quality,
contact with nature, and mitigation of the impacts of extreme weather such as heatwaves and
urban inundation. UGS users could also be urban land users, such as the local government,
enterprises, and urban residents. UGS is a non-excludable resource with the provision of a
range of ecosystem services for all urban residents. The subtractability of UGS increases as
urban population density grow, and land-driven economic development advances. The
availability of UGS depends upon the total amount of urban land, which often has a
geographical boundary.
Similarly, urban land also shares the characteristics of CPR. Economists deem land resources
as the single most valuable natural resource for both its scarcity and significance for the
production of almost all businesses (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010). Urban land has a
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pronounced scarcity, which makes it essential to produce goods and services of adequate
quantity and quality within available urban land spaces, including vital ecosystem services.
Urban infrastructures are increasingly recognised as strategic arenas for climate change action
(Broto, 2017). Within this context, UGS is increasingly conceptualised as a CPR globally and
the term ‘urban green commons’ emerged from the perspective of property rights to address
the governance issues of UGS within various land ownership conditions (private, public, club,
or hybrid) (Colding et al., 2013) In China, the knowledge gap of CPRs is even more evident.
Despite being a country with highly diverse and abundant CPRs, including watershed,
forests, environment, regional ecosystems, and governance practices in the world,
scientific research from the perspective of commons in China or about Chinese CPRs are
lacking, and much less has been communicated within the international scientific
community (Wang, 2017).
3.4.3 Critical elements in common-pool resource governance
3.4.3.1 Governance and actors
The concept of governance has come to be defined each time more comprehensively in
literature. The Commission on Global Governance (1995) broadly defines governance as the
sum of the many ways in which individuals and institutions, public and private, manage issues.
While the Natural Resource Governance Institute (2017) works with the definition of
governance emphasising the role of state actors: “the form of political regime or the manner
by which authority is exercised in the management of a country’s social or economic resources
for the public good.” The World Bank (2017) defines governance more comprehensively as
“the process through which state and non-state actors interact to design and implement policies
within a given set of formal and informal rules that shape and are shaped by power - the ability
of groups and individuals to make others act in the interest of those groups and individuals and
to bring about specific outcomes”. Similarly, the UN-Habitat sourcebook on Integrating Health
in Urban and Territorial Planning defines governance comprehensively as “the political and
administrative management of places that involves partnerships (formal or informal) between
governments at different levels but also the private sector and civil society organisations”
(Grant, 2020).
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More broadly speaking, governance is basically the processes and outcome of decision-making
as a result of interactions between state and non-state actors according to the rules given. State
actors refer to governments of different administrative levels. American economist Arrow
(1974: 25) defines government as “one of a large number of collective institutions which
distinguishes itself from others primarily by its monopoly on coercive power, although even
that monopoly is not absolute.” State actors seek rent through providing a series of services,
such as protecting property rights, providing public services, and military defense. In this
perspective, state actors, to their best capabilities, make policies based on pragmatic
calculations of costs and benefits in economic, social, environmental, and political spheres.
Non-state actors, on the other hand, encompass individuals, associations, ethnic groups,
organisations, and institutions across regional and local levels that are not governments. Non-
state actors influence state decisions directly through interactions with states or indirectly
through the dynamics in between each other, such as including information sharing, capacity
building or even competing (Andonova et al., 2009). Non-state actors play a significant role in
urban planning and environmental governance across levels (Biermann et al., 2010). In fact,
non-state actors - urban planners, developers, and citizens are also considered to be the
pragmatic ‘economic man’ who seek to maximise their own benefit-cost ratios (environmental,
social, or economic).
3.4.3.2 Institutions
Institutions are crucial for urban sustainability governance as they structure interactions within
governments as well as between government and non-state actors by reinforcing norms and
commitments, facilitating coordination, and promoting cooperation and implementation
(Bridges, 2016; Latour and Douglas, 1988; World Bank, 2017). One of the most widely cited
definitions of institutions is by American economist Douglass North, Nobel laureate in
Economics (1984): “(institutions are) contractual arrangements between principals and
principals and agents, made to maximise their wealth by realising the gains from trade as a
result of speciasation (including speciasation in violence or coercion).” In North’s definition,
an agent is someone who explicitly or implicitly gives up control over his/her own decision-
making power and submits authority to a principal. For example, a worker to an employer or
manager, a bureaucrat to a government official are relationships of agents to principals. North
extended the definition of institutions as “the humanly devised constraints that structure
political, economic and social interaction.” North (1991) distinguishes institutions as
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containing both informal institutions, such as strategies, ethics, norms, customs, sanctions,
taboos, traditions, and codes of conduct, and formal institutions, including constitutions, laws,
property rights, legal statements, and policies” Hodgson (2006) puts institutions more simply
as “systems of established and embedded social rules that structure social interactions.” Ostrom
defines institutions as “the prescriptions that humans use to organise all forms of repetitive and
structured interactions including those within families, neighbourhoods, markets, firms, sports
league, churches, private associations, and governments at all scales.” (2005: 3). According to
Ostrom, institutions exist whenever interdependent individuals act in an organised way, their
high complexity is a result of the diverse situations in contemporary life. The variations in
levels, scales, and types of human organised social life make institutional arrangements, or the
rules of the game, highly complex.
Reasonably designed, functional institutions can structure human behaviour and actor
interactions and generate efficiency in a long-lasting way (Vatn, 2005). Acemoglu and
Robinson, the authors of Why Nations Fail (2012), explained the origin of the rise and fall of
nations through the study of various countries throughout different eras. They argue that
institutions of a country can directly lead to its prosperity or turmoil. Functional or inclusive
institutions can promote the research and development of new technologies and are the
foundation of sustainable economic development. Extractive institutions, however, even if they
promote economic growth, can only lead to a temporary improvement in efficiency, which is
difficult to sustain. In urban planning, it is not uncommon to see technically sound planning
ideas fail to be implemented and sustained in practice, as planners often neglect or it is out of
their professional reach to make institutional adaptations accordingly (Zhao, 2005).
Besides, the dimensions of levels and scales can impact the effectiveness of institutional
arrangements fundamentally. Analysis of urban environmental governance necessitates
understanding interactions among actors and the impacts of institutional arrangements on them
across these two dimensions, due to the complexity of institutions and actors in broader field
settings (Ostrom, 2010). The levels of institutions are generally related to the structures,
administrative or legislative, through which governments organise non-state actors to
participate in social and economic activities and interact with the environment (Cash et al.,
2006). Administrative levels include the levels of nation, province, and local levels such as city,
district, town, township, and village. Legislative levels include constitutions, laws, regulations,
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and context- or case-specific operating rules. The scales of institutions commonly related to
the dimensions of time, geography, population, and quantities of goods and services. Gibson
et al., (2000) define scale as “the spatial, temporal, quantitative, or analytical dimensions used
to measure and study any phenomenon” and level as the unit of analysis that are “located at the
same position on a scale.” For example, climate change impacts and biodiversity loss can
appear locally, but can extend to global scale thorough cause-and-effect-chains and transcend
existing administrative territorial jurisdictions or levels (Newig and Fritsch, 2009). Besides,
institutions of resource use or environmental governance at local levels in general are
embedded in and influenced by institutions at regional, national, and global levels. Increases
in administrative levels and geographic scales lead to increased complexity and uncertainty,
both in ecological conditions and governance operations (Olsen et al., 2011). In climate
adaptation, multilevel institutional coordination between different political and administrative
levels in society is increasingly challenging in both developing and developed countries (Glaas
and Juhola, 2013; Rodima-Taylor et al., 2012). Establishing a multilevel institutional
coordination mechanism between different political and administrative levels is a crucial for
promoting urban adaptation planning and implementation outcomes (Engle and Lemos, 2010;
Glaas and Juhola, 2013; Revi et al., 2014). In addition, building institutional capacity at the
local level, e.g., in local governments, is critical too (Mimura et al., 2015).
Ostrom (2015) summed up eight common characteristics (in Ostrom´s original words, “design
principles”) in long-enduring CPR governance regimes. Most successful CPR governance
cases have:
1) Clearly defined boundaries, including resource boundaries and user boundaries,
2) Proportional equivalence between benefits and costs for all actors (individuals or groups),
3) Collective-choice or public participation arrangements,
4) Effective mechanisms of monitoring,
5) Graduated sanctions of actors who violate the rules collectively agreed upon,
6) Effective conflict resolution mechanism via affordable means,
7) Minimal recognition (by state-actors, e.g., upper-level governments) of the rights to organize,
and lastly,
8) Nested enterprises in which the resources in governance are considered part of a larger
ecosystem or the governance activities are integrated into a multi-level governance scheme.
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Over the years, economists have concluded that the market oriented approach is incapable of
governing common-pool resources effectively, for it 1) generates negative externalities in the
process of goods and services distribution, 2) quantifies the costs and benefits of the diverse
ecosystem services narrowly, which undermines ecological and community values, particularly
of those socially and economically underprivileged changes constantly in economic value; and
3) constantly changes in economic value (Gatzweiler, 2003; Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010;
Chambwera et al., 2015). Besides, the model of the liberal economy often proclaims that
technological means (e.g., direct air carbon capture and storage, abbreviated DACCS) and
economic progress can overcome biophysical limitations of the Earth or any reckless,
exploitative, or even violent human behaviours.
Thus, the role of public authorities gradually gained significance in natural resource
governance for their potential to regulate the market-driven distribution of goods and services
to reduce uncertainties, inequities and behavioural biases (Chambwera et al., 2015). Public
authorities are considered as pragmatic and self-interested organisations, which are of no
exception but a member of the numerous actors in the market whose motives and behaviours
obey the rules of the market game and to gain the maximum surplus (Zhao, 2005). Arrow
considers authority as “the centralisation of decision-making” and can serve “to economise on
the transmission and handling of information” (1974: 69). For example, a direct cost-benefit
focused approach would assess the risks of flooding related to intensified tropical cyclones and
storm surge in dense urban areas through the direct costs of damaged infrastructure,
interruption of productivity, and hospitalisation. A progressed, state-supervised version of
disaster impact assessment could go one step further to consider the social costs of the
underprivileged communities as well as the indirect costs of recovery induced in the
foreseeable future. However, even a more progressed, state-supervised assessment could not
provide 100% of information certainty or availability over time due to the changing dynamics
in the complex social-ecological systems. As examined more recently with community-based
conservation, simple policy prescriptions to entrust resources to a state actor, a free market, or
even to decentralised user groups may also fail, if institutional complexity of levels, scales,
objectives, actors and the social contexts are not appropriately taken into account (Berkes, 2007;
Meinzen-Dick, 2007).
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3.4.3.3 Property rights bundles
There are two major problems associated with CPR governance: overexploitation and free
riding. overexploitation occurs easily in situations where the difficulty of excluding other
beneficiaries is high. Free riding occurs when those who benefit from the CPRs do not pay for
them, which results in under-provision of those resources. For example, a well, constructed by
villagers to fetch water, has costs of construction and maintenance. When some villagers do
want to enjoy the sweet water but do not want to share the maintenance cost with other villagers,
the well could go into a mal-maintained state and eventually become dried up.
These problems can be resolved by defining and clarifying property rights (Coase, 1992;
Ostrom et al., 1961). Alchian (1989) defines property rights as socially enforced rights to select
uses of an economic good. More specifically, North (1990) considers property rights as rights
that individuals or groups appropriate over their own labour and the goods and services they
possess. Zhao (2005) argues that the essence of the use of CPRs is not the exchange of goods
and services itself, but the exchange of a set of property rights. The value of the goods or
services traded also depends on the range or the clarity of the property rights that are transferred
in a transaction (Coggan et al., 2010; McCann et al., 2005). Demsetz (1974) and Coase (1998)
consider that the prerequisite for all human interaction activities are institutional arrangements,
which are essentially a kind of power to exercise certain behaviours between individuals or
groups. Building on the same line of thought, Zhao (2005) argues that the primary tasks of
institutional intervention are to define the property rights of individuals or groups to resources,
stipulate what they can do, and then maximise the total social product through the transaction
of their property rights.
Resources are often classified into different types, partially depending on their ownership and
partially on other property rights. CPRs can be owned and managed as government, private,
community properties, or owned by no one (Bromley, 1986). Through extensive meta-analysis
of existing field cases, Ostrom (2005) and her colleagues have identified five types of property
rights that individuals or groups using a CPR:
(1) Access – the right to enter a specified property,
(2) Withdrawal – the right to harvest specific products from a resource,
(3) Management – the right to regulate internal use patterns and to transform a resource
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(4) Exclusion – the right to decide who will have access, withdrawal, or management rights,
and
(5) Alienation – the right to lease or sell any of the other four rights.
The concept of CPRs and these identified property rights is now widely accepted by scholars
who have studied resource management issues in diverse systems around the world (Degnbol
and McCay, 2007; Paavola and Adger, 2005; Trawick, 2001). Identifying and acting upon the
right property rights are critical to achieving success in resource management. As Zhao (2005)
exemplified, many historical districts and traditional buildings with the best construction
quality in Beijing deteriorated drastically within the last few decades, mainly due to the
misplacement of property rights. Residents, who are entitled to access and maintain these
buildings and are in the best position to do so, were excluded from such rights. Property rights
arrangements are critical for effective coordination and fair, efficient distribution of resources
among the population for sustainability (Heltberg, 2002).
Ideally speaking, the property rights bundles in UGS governance should be considered in two
folds. The first is associated with the urban land resources and the second is associated with
the ecological resources - the ecological networks, the ecosystems, plus the goods and services
that these ecosystems provide. In the case of private urban land properties, the rights to the land
are mostly equivalent to those to the ecological resources that grows directly on it. For public
land, the rights of ownership could belong to a public entity, such as a state organisation, but
the ecological resources and the ecosystem goods and services on public land could be private
or communal, and the rights to manage could be attributed further to other entities.
Investigation into the property rights of UGS necessitates recognition of the complex property
rights bundles to both 1) urban land, which could be public, private, or club lands (e.g.,
residential compounds), and 2) the ecological resources within the same geographical boundary.
In the CPR theory, communities who are the most direct bearers of climate change
consequences and access UGS for physical and mental health and wellbeing purposes, with the
respective property rights attributed among actors in proper levels and scales, can organise an
efficient, sustainable UGS governance regime. The institutional arrangements in urban
planning are, in essence, distributions of property rights among actors. If property rights are
well defined, particularly when there are few affected parties, negative externalities could be
avoided more easily (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010).
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3.4.3.4 Transaction costs
In practical terms, economic activities involve costs in many processes to soother the political
or economic relationships and interactions between individual or group actors, e.g., the process
of searching for and analysing information, reaching and implementing an agreement (Vatiero,
2020). In many cases, the exact costs of a transaction are not easily quantifiable, but the concept
transaction cost serves the purpose of informing the imperfection of transactions. Coase
initially introduced the concept of transaction costs to explain the emergence of firms, or the
internalisation of production of a particular good or service, as driven by the need to avoid or
reduce costs included in the price of the good or service, such as costs of search and information
acquisition, bargaining or negotiation, as well as enforcement, access to new markets, and
many others (Coase, 1937 & 1960; Williamson, 1979). Another institutional economist
Douglass North defines transaction costs as “the costs of specifying and enforcing the contracts
that underlie exchange and therefore comprise all the costs of political and economic
organisation that permit economies to capture the gains from trade” (North, 1984). North
estimates the percentage of transaction costs in the gross national product (GNP) in advanced
Western countries to be as much as 50%. The concept of transaction costs redirects the core
principle of economic activities from obtaining the largest economic gains to reducing
transaction costs. It helps organisations make decisions not only based on weighing the value
of what is obtained but also the value of what is sacrificed to obtain it and choose for the
economically efficient option (Chambwera et al., 2015).
Broadly speaking, when multiple actors or actor groups are involved in a decision-making
setting, the transaction costs can also be viewed as the costs to achieve agreement or consensus,
see Figure 6. Situation A and B represent decision-making situations in which the costs to
achieve consensus is assumed manageable. Situations C and D represent situations in which
the costs to achieve consensus is assumed beyond manageable. Situations A and C are when
the differences of interests or information among actors or organisational members influence
the costs more than the quantity of interests or information. In situations A and C, there is more
drive for authority and less room for consensus seeking. In Situations B and D, the quantity of
interests or information among actors or organisational members influences the costs more than
differences of interests or information. In these circumstances, there is less drive for authority
and more room for consensus seeking. The way to promote actors in a decision-making setting
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to interact towards consensus-seeking is to stay within the ideal quantity-versus-difference

ratio of interests or information among actors. Situation B represents such a ratio. For Situation
A, communication is needed to reduce the differences of interests or information for cost-
benefit sustainable consensus-seeking. For Situation C, communication is needed to reduce the
differences of interests or information, besides, down-sizing the number of actors or
organisational members is also needed for cost-benefit consensus-seeking. For Situation D:
down-sizing is proposed to reduce the quantity of interests or information to make the
consensus costs manageable.
Figure 6: Costs to achieve consensus dependent on the quantity and similarity of interests or
information (and thereby power) between actors
State actors are pragmatic actors who also pursue the maximum benefits within environmental,
social, and political spheres. At times when transaction costs are implicit or hard to detect, it is
often due to the existence of hierarchies which are effective in allocating efficiency (Coase,
1937). Due to the universality of uncertainty and bounded rationality, contracts, or deals,
decisions, are necessarily incomplete (Williamson, 1977). In these occasions, hierarchy serves
to construct a superior-subordinate relationship through which transaction costs are distributed
or disseminated along with the downsizing of scales and levels. At least two actors, individuals,
or groups, are involved in any transactions. This is also a prerequisite for institutions to emerge.
Therefore, some scholars also refer to transaction costs as institutional costs (e.g., Cheung,
1989). Ostrom (2010) and Schlager and Heikkila (2011) suggest that the keys to reduce
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transaction costs among large groups of individuals when coping with complex social
dilemmas are to communicate and make context-appropriate rules collectively.
In climate change mitigation and adaptation, a major transaction cost is information acquisition,
e.g., the technical challenge to obtain updated climate and weather data or access to the existing
one, or to quantify adequately the benefits of UGS for the ecosystem services they provide
(Cimato and Mullan, 2010). As a public good, information suffers the under-provision problem
by private actors, hence requires public authorities to support its procurement and
dissemination, e.g. through research funding (Fankhauser et al., 1999; Trenberth, 2008).
Adjustment cost represents another barrier, especially in the presence of uncertainty and
learning. Fankhauser et al. (1999) define adjustment costs as a barrier to early capital
replacement to adapt to a different climate. Kelly and Kolstad (2005) define adjustment cost as
the cost incurred while learning about new climate conditions. These definitions suggest that
adjustment cost can represent a significant share of climate adaptation costs. Adjustment cost
also includes the cost of defining the property rights to climate mitigation benefits and costs
(Libecap, 2014). In urban planning, analysis mainly focuses on two types of transaction costs,
one is technological cost, e.g., when it involves engineering techniques or technologies, and
the other one is institutional cost due to the mismatch or imperfect flow of information, as well
as due to the credibility of agreements, or rules, such as property rights arrangements (Ho, 2017;
Zhao, 2005). However, despite the theoretical value of transaction cost, how to measure it
accurately for effective policy making often remains a methodological challenge.
3.4.3.5 Institutional change
Types and mechanisms of institutional change

Institutions are dynamic and evolutionary by nature, and they change over time. North (1990:
3) notes that, as institutions structure incentives in human interactions in political, social, and
economic spheres, “institutional change shapes the way societies evolve through time and
hence is the key to understanding historical change.” Institutional change refers to the
innovation and breakthrough of an institutional framework. Institutional change “typically
consists of marginal adjustments to the complex of rules, norms, and enforcement that
constitute the institutional framework” (North, 1990: 83). Institutional change is a result of
actors’ interactions within given institutional arrangements over time. Different institutional
arrangements expand or limit the choices and behaviours of actors.
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Broadly speaking, institutional change can be distinguished as process-oriented or goal-

oriented, or in other words, institutional change of the means or the ends. The common-pool
resource theory tends to focus on the process-oriented institutional changes. Blomquist and
Ostrom (2008) define institutional change as entailing institutional design, assessment, and
modification and propose that it necessarily takes place within the constraints and opportunities
afforded by existing institutional arrangements. North (1990) argues that the process of
institutional change could be either discontinuous or incremental. While a discontinuous
change of formal institutions might occur overnight because of political decisions, incremental
change often refer to informal institutions such as tradition and cultural norms. In addition,
depending on the actor(s) who induce the process of change, institutional change could be
distinguished as bottom-up or top-down (North, 1991). Bottom-up institutional change occurs
when the change is induced by demand, e.g., changes that are initiated, organised and realised
by individual or group actors as they are attracted by the opportunities to profit from a potential
new institution. While top-down changes occur when the change is induced by supply, e.g.
when authorities introduce changes in the form of regulations and law (Wegerich, 2001).
One example of institutional change of the means or that is process-oriented is the governance
shift towards polycentric governance from state or market-oriented approaches. The quest of
polycentric governance focuses on the means - how to approach a subject, a resource, or a
service, to achieve higher efficiency in all the desired dimensions. Institutional change of the
means does not change the broader institutional context, or deeper lying institutions which
define the ends, e.g., fundamental values or principles. The concept of polycentric governance
builds on the premise that social-ecological systems, e.g., how people organise resource use of
various scales across local, regional, and national levels, are becoming increasingly
interconnected and complex (Berkes, 2006; Blomquist, 2009). Ostrom et al. (1961) and
Ostrom (2005) define the concept of polycentricity as connotating multiple centres of decision-
making which are formally independent to one another and can function together within
interdependent systems depending on contexts or cases. Polycentric governance emphasises
the collective gesture of community organisation and the dispersed in many small groups or
communities surrounding the access of goods and services (Nagendra and Ostrom, 2012).
Another example of process-oriented institutional change of the means is the people-centred
health approach endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which "consciously
adopts the perspectives of individuals, families and communities, and sees them as participants
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as well as beneficiaries of trusted health systems that respond to their needs and preferences in
humane and holistic ways." (WHO et al., 2015: 10-11). According to the WHO, people-centred
health services need to reflect a set of core principles, such as comprehensiveness in responding
to people's evolving health needs and aspirations, equity, sustainability, prevention,
empowerment, and systems-thinking. The WHO emphasises “the right care at the right time in
the right place” (WHO et al., 2015: 14). The definition by the WHO for its member states in
health service provision, hence, is one that calls for institutional change primarily on the means
of public service. The means is the inclusion of citizen's rights both to health benefits and to
participation.
The other broad type of institutional change is goal-oriented, or institutional change of the ends.
This type of institutional change focuses on the end goals and objectives more so than on the
process or the means to achieve certain change. For example, according to Hagedorn’s (2008;
2015) ‘Institutions of Sustainability’ theory, institutions can also be distinguished as
integrative institutions and segregative institutions. Integrative institutions are the ones that
can reduce unintended externalities that burden the health and wellbeing of vulnerable groups
in society or the environment, such as pollution, extinction, and degradation (McPhearson et
al., 2016). In this circumstance, the degree of institutional fit for the end goal (such as urban
health, climate adaptation) is high (Epstein et al., 2015; Young, 2002). Integrative institutions
can evolve towards segregative institutions or institutional mismatch, when external
environments change, resulting in changes in the end goals and objectives, thus stimulating
institutional change. Neale (1993) considers that institutional change occurs when actors learn,
adapt and respond accordingly by putting forward demands for new institutions in order to
achieve the expected increased benefits. Only when the expected benefit is greater than the
expected cost, actors will make adaptation or changes to existing institutions (North, 2012;
Zhao, 2005).
In some cases, the people-centred approach may also focus on the ends of development.
According to Robertson (1994), a member of the People-Centred Development Forum, people-
centred development is one that facilitates the transition to a new civilisation a sharp contrast
to more familiar forms of development that have taken their mission to be the Euro-American
civilisation and modernisation. In this Euro-American development model, wealth is
augmented by ever-increasing exploitation of the Earth, governed by impersonal systems, and
possesses greater legitimate power than people. According to Korten (1987), people-centred
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development strategies emphasise the need to strengthen institutional capacity to support

greater local control, accountability, and self-reliance regarding access to physical and
financial resources. The people-centred development defined by the People-Centred
Development Forum is one example that focuses on the end goal of development. In this model,
how development is achieved is not necessarily as relevant as it facilitates the arrival of a status
that is the opposite of the existing one. Similarly, scholars argue that an overarching goal or
“ultimate end” in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is critical for articulating the
sub-goals and targets and for providing synergies towards the larger goal (Costanza et al., 2014;
Lim et al., 2018). Costanza et al. (2014) propose that ‘equity & human wellbeing - a prosperous,
high quality of life that is equitably shared and sustainable’ should be considered as the ultimate
ends of sustainable development, while goals related to economic performance, technological
advancements, political measures, and normative advocacies should be considered only as
intermediate means of sustainable development. Such a view prioritises on institutional change
of the ends.27
Barriers to institutional change

If for some reason, intended institutional changes did not occur, it is referred to as institutional
barriers or barriers of institutional change. Institutional barriers in general are dynamic and
context-dependent across sectoral, spatial, and temporal scales (Mimura et al., 2015). Literature
has indicated three major types of institutional barriers to climate change adaptation in both
developed and developing countries. The first type is barriers that impede multilevel
institutional coordination between different political and administrative levels in society
(Preston et al., 2013; Robinson and Berkes, 2011). In climate change adaptation, some scholars
have defended the need for top-down institutional change - national requirements or guidelines,
regulations, policies, and codes - to occur, as currently climate adaptation is commonly
inhibited by unclear roles and responsibilities across multiple levels and actors (Brown et al.,
2013). The second type is the institutional rigidity which limits the horizontal interplay within
local governments, where climate adaptation is seen as the isolated task of a singular sector
27
Williamson’s levels of institutional change resonate with this broad categorisation of institutional change of the
means and ends. Equity and human wellbeing are often considered as end goals of development. They are also a
value or a norm, or a right which might not change frequently. If so, it would be a slow changing institution at
Williamson’s embeddedness level.
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(van den Berg and Coenen, 2012; Runhaar et al., 2012; Wilby and Keenan, 2012). In this case,
past policies, decisions, habits, and traditions constrain the extent to which systems can learn
or adapt to climate change, which scholars also referred to as path dependency (Preston et al.,
2013; Runhaar et al., 2012). Sometimes institutional rigidity also exists in the form of
institutional barriers, including competing values, conflicting objectives, tensions, and trade-
offs in political dimensions, namely between different actors, policy agendas, and priorities in
planning and implementation (Adger et al., 2009; Mimura et al., 2015; Storbjörk and Hedrén,
2011). It is not uncommon for governments and local authorities to fail in presenting optimal
solutions, possibly due to their cognitive and behavioural biases (Krueger, 1990; Podsakoff et
al., 1990). The third type is barriers that impede coordination between formal governmental
and administrative agencies and social and private stakeholders in order to create participatory
approaches suitable for the localised and contextual nature of climate adaptation (Engle and
Lemos, 2010; Jonsson et al., 2012). Scholars consider private sector involvement as a way to
increase the efficiency of climate adaptation (Engle and Lemos, 2010; Tompkins and Eakin,
2012). Besides, key actors, advocates, and champions are decisive for initiating, mainstreaming,
and sustaining momentum for climate adaptation planning and implementation in different
national settings (Moser and Ekstrom, 2010; Romero-lankao and Wilhelmi, 2018).
3.5 Analysing Common-Pool Resource Governance through the IAD Framework

Common-pool resource governance can be analysed through the Institutional Analysis and
Development (IAD) framework (see Figure 7). The IAD framework was intentionally
developed to "map" out institutions and help people understand how institutions promote or
obstruct human collaboration and governance (Ostrom, 2005). Ostrom and her colleagues
developed the IAD framework based on many empirical studies that revealed the complexity
and diversity of the field settings (Kiser and Ostrom, 2000; Ostrom, 2005; Ostrom and Ostrom,
1977). The meta-theoretical language enables researchers to discuss any theory or compare
theories and identify influential variables in various empirical settings. The IAD framework
has already been widely applied in empirical studies of CPRs such as irrigation systems, forest
management, and Green House Gases (GHG) emission for climate change mitigation, as well
as within urban contexts (e.g., Mincey et al., 2013; Ostrom, 1972; Ostrom et al., 1979).
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Figure 7: The Institutional Analysis and Development framework
Source: Adapted from Ostrom 2005: 15.
Ostrom and her colleagues designed the IAD framework with a group of elements so that when
analysing the governance of a particular resource, depending on the researcher's needs, one can
analyse each of the elements multiple times. These elements are: ①Biophysical conditions,
②Community attributes and ③Rules-in-use, which can affect an ④Action situation, often
considered the core of the IAD framework, ⑤Actors or participants, ⑥Interactions,
⑦Outcomes, and ⑧Evaluative criteria.
①Biophysical conditions refer to the natural environmental conditions in which the

institutional arrangements are applied. Sometimes it can be simplified as one of the four types
of economic goods (public, private, club, and common-pool goods), as Ostrom defines (2005).
It could also refer to general conditions such as climate change, environmental degradation,
and resource scarcity in general.
②Attributes of community are the socio-economic as well as cultural, historical, and political
characteristics of a community. They could include the history of prior interactions, internal
homogeneity or heterogeneity of key attributes, and the knowledge and social capital of those
who could participate or be affected by others.
③Rules-in-use includes regulations, norms, agreements, agendas, or anything that has a

bidding effect – legal, political, or moral, to the actors involved in a decision-making setting
potentially across several levels. They are the information which forms a common
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understanding of those involved related to who must, must not, or may take which actions
affecting others depending on incentives or sanctions (Crawford and Ostrom, 1995). Ostrom
(2005) defines seven types of rules-in-use:
• Boundary rules define which actors are included based on specific criteria, e.g.,
geographical boundary, natural and socio-demographic conditions such as age and level of
education
• Position rules define in what way actors are participating in decision making
• Choice rules define what actors can do, must or must not do
• Information rules define what information can be circulated among which actors, in what
frequency and language
• Aggregation rules define how actors collectively make decisions
• Scope rules define the range of possible results within the action situation
• Payoff rules define reward or sanction
Ostrom further specifies that the ③Rules-in-use may evolve or self-consciously change the
rules in a collective-choice or constitutional-choice setting (Ostrom, 2005), which could
directly influence an ④Action situation.
These elements together impact an ④Action situation, which then generate patterns of
interactions and outcomes. These outcomes may be evaluated by participants in the action
situation, and potentially by researchers, which further feeds back on both the external
variables and the action situation (Ostrom, 2005). The ④Action situation is often treated as
the core part or the focal point of the IAD framework, as participants interact with each other
within an action situation from the position they are assigned to, and make decisions depending
on the information, power to control, and the net costs and benefits given. The internal structure
of an action situation is demonstrated in Figure 8. The costs and benefits include direct,
monetary costs and benefits such as the costs of planting, pruning, removal, irrigation and the
benefits of cooling energy savings; as well as indirect, non-monetary costs and benefits, such
as interception of particulates, stormwater runoff reduction, residents’ relative wellbeing, and
influences on local biodiversity (McPherson, 1992).
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Figure 8: The internal structure of an action situation.
Source: Adapted from Ostrom 2005: 33.
⑤Actors or participants of CPR governance, which may include. governments and non-state
actors.
⑥Interactions. The original IAD framework automatically assumes that all types of actors
within an action arena participate by interacting with other actors, such as agreeing,
coordinating, cooperating, negotiating, or supervising. However, in this research, the
researcher argues that not all situations fit this assumption. Hence, it is necessary to include the
possibilities of non-participation, which also includes two possibilities: 1) not informed and
not participating, and 2) informed but not-participating. Only based on information can
interactions happen. Based on information, two types of participation are anticipated: partial
and substantial participation, in which actors agree, coordinate, cooperate, negotiate, or
supervise (see Table 8: Categories, codes and sub-codes for the qualitative content analysis
using MaxQDA as well as the subsequent analysis in Chapter 6).
The ⑦Outcomes may include, 1) decisions and actions a certain governance issue, such as
UGS planning and implementation, and 2) the resultant formal and informal institutional
changes, e.g., on the positions of actors and the property rights they hold.
⑧Evaluative criteria will be established to evaluate ⑥Interactions and ⑦Outcomes. The

original evaluative criteria defined by Ostrom (2005) are:
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1) Economic efficiency. It is the flow of net benefits associated with an allocation or

reallocation of resources.
2) Equity. It includes procedural equity and substantive equity, e.g., the right to participate is a
procedural equity and the health and wellbeing benefits is a kind of substantive equity.
3) Adaptability, resilience, and robustness. It relates to the effect of
intervention/implementation on the community, the environment, and the institutions overtime.
4) Accountability: refers to the acknowledgement and assumption of responsibility by
respective actors for their actions at the corresponding level or the next upper level.
5) Conformance to general morality. It refers to three aspects of morality – informational, legal,
and ethical.
Now, despite that the IAD framework has been well acclaimed by scholars for its overall
potential in analysing CPR governance, the ⑧evaluative criteria is the least developed part
subjected to future contestation as scholar research advances (Cole, 2017). Considering that it
is also the most flexible part of the IAD framework that allows context-specific readjustments,
in this research, these five criteria are used as a structural reference, according to which a more
comprehensive set of criteria is established (see Section 4.3.2.2 Applying multi-criteria
assessment in this research).
Research on governance issues in China using the IAD framework is emerging quickly and
seems to have successfully addressed a broad range of topics, particularly since Ostrom won
the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009. These emerging research primarily concentrates on
water/irrigation system management (Araral and Wu, 2016; Fan et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2017),
conflicts of land-use/expropriation (Cao and Zhang, 2018; Wu et al., 2018), urbanisation issues
(Ma et al., 2019; Xiong et al., 2020), unexpected natural and human events (disasters and
protests) (Liu and de Jong 2017; Ran et al., 2020). Among these studies, Ma et al. (2019) used
the IAD framework to analyse Chinese farmers’ willingness to settle in urban areas and its
influencing factors. Fan et al. (2019) used the IAD framework to assess the effects of
community perceptions and institutional capacity on smallholder farmers’ responses to water
scarcity in China’s arid Northwestern region. Liu and de Jong (2017) used the institutional
design principles of the IAD framework and the concept of common-pool resource to
understand the institutional causes of environmental protests in China. Ran et al. (2020) studied
the governance of geo-disasters in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region in China under the IAD
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framework. It is evident that scholars are increasingly finding the IAD framework convincing
for analysing a vast range of action situations regardless of context. This is also thanks to the
powerful meta-language that Ostrom (2005) and her colleagues were able to develop after
decades of theoretical inquiry and empirical testing.
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CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
4.1 Research Design
4.1.1 Designing the empirical analysis with the IAD framework
The previous chapter established the IAD framework as an analytical tool for dissecting and
examining the quality of CPR governance cases in empirical settings. This research applies the
IAD framework to understand three UGS governance cases in Guangzhou, China. It is used in
three ways:
1) define independent and dependent variables
2) confirm this research's core variables, which is the ③ rule-in-use and the ④ action
situation.
3) guide the composition of the in-depth and semi-structured interview questions, aiming to
find adequate and consistent information about the different variables in three case studies.
First, the IAD framework is used here to define the independent and dependent variables. The
three exogenous variables: ①biophysical conditions, ②community attributes and ③rules-in-
use are the independent variables at the beginning of the research time frame. Within the
research time frame, they gradually become dependent variables as the ⑦outcomes feedback
to them (see Figure 9). The ①biophysical conditions in this research refer to the conditions of
the UGS in the city of Guangzhou, including wetlands, urban parks, and ecological corridors.
For ②community attributes, three community clusters – local governments, communities or
residents, and landowners, each has their attributes. Local governments include the city and
district governments, communities or residents are those who reside and/or make their living
within the study area. Landowners refer to those who legally own the land and/or the property
above who do not necessarily reside or make their living within the study area. The ③Rules-
in-use includes the national development agendas, urban macro plans, local norms, or regional
preferences of urban development, as well as the legal and political positions where various
public and private actors across several levels are placed in decision-making settings regarding
UGS planning and management in the city of Guangzhou.
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Figure 9: The IAD framework applied in this research
Second, the IAD framework is used to confirm the core variables of this research, which is the
③rule-in-use and the ④action situation. Particularly, ④action situation is the focal point
where various actors communicate, negotiate, agree, or disagree, collaborate or delegate
towards certain outcomes in the three UGS planning and governance cases, including the
implementation of UGS plans, the improvement of environmental quality and climate
resilience, the inclusion of social costs, and potential institutional changes.
Furthermore, the IAD framework is also used to structure the in-depth and semi-structured
interview questions, aiming to find adequate and consistent information about the different
variables in three case studies. Table 5 shows the four main research questions and their
correspondent variables and reveals the methods of data collection and analysis suitable for
analysing the variables to answer these main research questions.
Aims Research Questions Key Variables Data Collection Methods Data Analysis Methods
Q1. What institutional
① Biophysical
facilitations or
A1. Understand condition
challenges have
institutional ② Community attributes In-depth interviews
Chinese urban Qualitative content
dynamics, ③ Rule-in-use Archive research
governments received analysis
facilitators, and ⑤ Actors
or confronted when
underlying barriers ⑦ Outcome
planning and
⑧ Evaluative criteria
managing UGS?
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① Biophysical
condition
Q2. How have local
A2. Examine the ③ Rule-in-use Qualitative content
governments managed In-depth Interviews
extent and ④ Action situation analysis
to upscale UGS Archive research
approaches for UGS ⑤ Actors Multi-criteria assessment
towards more
upscaling ⑥ Interactions (MCA)
effective NbS?
⑦ Outcome
③ Rule-in-use In-depth Interviews
A3. Analyse costs Q3. What are the Qualitative content
⑥ Interactions Archive research
and benefits taken good practices to be analysis
⑦ Outcomes Observation
into consideration shared? MCA
Q4. Why some
② Community attributes
A4. Understand challenges persisted
③ Rule-in-use In-depth Interviews Qualitative content
intrinsic-value- despite centralised
⑤ Actors Archive research analysis
related factors of government system
⑥ Interactions Observation MCA
institutional barriers and strong political
determination?
Table 5: Overview of research design
4.1.2 A qualitative, case-study-based research approach

The institutional focus of this research determines its qualitative and case-based approach.
Scholars have applied institutional analysis on environmental and social challenges as long-
term consequences of formal and informal institutional arrangements interplayed at different
levels and scales, most of which were qualitative studies (Cumming et al., 2006; Young, 2002).
The complexity of real-world decision-making contexts and processes mean that many factors
or variables can be too intricate to be measured accurately and described comprehensively by
quantitative methods (Schlüter, 2010). A qualitative case study approach can carry out an in-
depth description and analysis of decision-making contexts and processes and their complex
scenarios without the omission of factors caused by the assumption of preconditions. Ostrom's
IAD framework is precisely based on a meta-analysis of many case studies. The qualitative
approach focuses on making sense of or interpreting social phenomena, e.g., experiences,
behaviours, organisational functioning, social movements, interactional relationships, and
cultural descriptions. The qualitative approach is also used to study phenomena in their natural
settings instead of labs or experimental settings. Furthermore, a qualitative approach allows
researchers to interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings actors bring to them (Denzin and
Lincoln, 2000).
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The qualitative case study approach used in this research is an inductive and open process, in
which the researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis through
iteratively conducting fieldwork. The qualitative case study approach attends to descriptive
data of low inference, which focuses on the detailed description of How vs. How Many. The
purpose of this research is to contextualise, interpret, and understand how different actors
behave about UGS governance. The research subject is context-specific in socio-economic,
political, temporal, and environmental dimensions. Hence, the qualitative approach can better
attend to the specificities of cases and their details through the researcher’s contact with people
and their insights. ‘The devil is in the detail.’ as the idiom goes, the qualitative approach,
therefore, can contribute to this research more so than a quantitative one.
4.1.3 Case selection, study period, and administrative level

This research includes three cases of UGS planning and governance in the city of Guangzhou,
all of which were implemented within the last two decades: an ecological corridor, an urban
wetland park converted from an orchard, and a Sponge City demonstration site (for the
definition of Sponge City please see 5.3.4 Tianhe Sponge City Demonstration Site). Choosing
all three case studies in the same city allows this research to explore the interaction of multiple
actors, various organisations and the complex arrangements of each case within the same
institutional, geographical, natural, cultural, socio-economic and political context. Guangzhou
is an ideal city for studying UGS planning and governance due to the city’s natural and urban
condition: an emerging, compact megacity located in a low-lying estuary and in a sub-tropical
climate zone with a high scarcity in land resource and high risk of climate change impacts (see
1.1 Urbanisation Trend, Environmental Degradation, and Climate Change Impacts in China).
The natural, socio-economic context of Guangzhou will be introduced in greater detail in
Section 5.1.1 Natural and socio-economic conditions.
As for study period, this research defines the study period of empirical cases between the New
Millennium and the current time for two main reasons. All three chosen case studies incurred
since 2000. Firstly, in the New Millennium, for the first time the Chinese central government
included sustainable development as one of the primary goals in the nation’s 10th Five-Year
Plan (FYP) for Socio-Economic Development, which states “the main expected goals of
sustainable development are: ... The trend of ecological deterioration will be curbed, the forest
coverage rate will be increased to 18.2%, and the green coverage rate in urban built areas will
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be increased to 35%. The urban and rural environmental quality will be improved, and the total
discharge of major pollutants will be decreased by 10% compared with that in 2000” (State
Council of China, 2001). Secondly, Guangzhou's municipal government considered the New
Millennium as a great timing for long-term strategic urban development planning to enable and
sustain further urbanisation. A macro-level strategic urban development plan was created,
which included the merging of two neighbouring counties - Panyu County and Huadu – into
the city's metropolitan territory, and a conceptual plan of an ecological corridor network (also
termed the "Ecological City" Plan) throughout the new metropolitan area (Guangzhou Daily,
2018).
The ecological corridor network resulting from the conceptual plan became the first case study
of UGS planning and governance in this research. The second case - the Haizhu Wetland Park
is another major case of UGS planning and governance in Guangzhou occurred around 2011,
a decade after the first case - the ecological corridor network conceptual plan. The second case
is relevant as it explored a new UGS planning and governance model through the transfer of
property rights. The third case - the Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site was implemented
around 2015 with the specific goal of adapting to the increasing urban inundation and flash
floods aggravated by climate change. The third case represents a new kind of UGS planning
and governance for the technical and political challenges it presented.
On administrative level, this research focuses on UGS planning and governance in China at the
city/municipal level, for two main reasons. First, Chinese cities as the local administrative units
make independent plans and policies on UGS governance depending on their status of land-
use, economic and social needs, based on the broad policy guidance provided or the goals
proposed in the national Five-Year Plans (FYPs) by the central government. More about the
central-local decision-making and coordination mechanism in the Chinese administrative
system can be found in Chapter 5.2.4 A multi-level, nested hierarchical system of land-use and
spatial planning. Second, it is the local level that directly absorbs the externalities induced by
improper UGS planning and governance, again prompting the need to focus on the local level.
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4.2 Data Collection

This research uses Grounded Theory as a methodological philosophy for data collection and
analysis. As the term suggests, Grounded Theory is a general, inductive methodology
‘grounded’ in qualitative data that is systematically gathered and analysed (Charmaz, 2015;
Noble and Mitchell, 2016). Proposed by (Glaser and Strauss, 1968 & 2017), Grounded Theory
is commonly used in social and behavioural sciences to uncover social processes: “…The
researcher begins with a broad query in a particular topic area and then collects relevant
information about the topic. As the action processes of data collection continue, each piece of
information is reviewed, compared, and contrasted with other information. From this constant
comparison process, commonalities and dissimilarities among categories of information
become clear, and ultimately a theory that explains observations is inductively developed”
(DePoy and Gitlin, 2016: 107). Essential features of Grounded Theory include: 1) data
collection and analysis occur simultaneously, 2) categories and analytic codes are developed
from data rather than from pre-existing conceptualisations (Noble and Mitchell, 2016).
This research applies Grounded Theory in data collection and analysis in the following ways.
First, the researcher spent an extensive amount of time in the field gathering data. Second, the
data collection is semi-structured and evolving rather than entirely structured. The researcher
seeks pluralism and complexity in the data collection process. Third, data is categorised and
coded to reduce raw data to themes, which is also a complex and time-consuming process.
Fourth, there is extensive writing to show multiple perspectives to find potential patterns as
well as to substantiate findings.
4.2.1 Data collection methods

Based on Grounded Theory as a methodological philosophy for data collection and analysis,
this research uses 1) in-depth semi-structured interviews, 2) archival research, and 3)
observations as methods to collect data (see Table 6).
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Data Collection Methods Type of data Sources Quantity

Government officials
Urban planners
Urban governance consultants
IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS Response from interviewees 50
Academic researchers
Land appropriators
Communities/ residents
National environmental agendas
National climate plans
National urban plans
ARCHIVE RESEARCH Urban plan/Policy texts 94
Local environmental agendas
Local climate plans
Local urban plans
OBSERVATION Observation notes Researcher /
Table 6: Overview of data collection methods
4.2.1.1 Semi-structured in-depth interviews

In this research, semi-structured in-depth interviews are conducted with government officials,
urban planners, urban governance consultants, academic researchers, land appropriators, and
communities/residents. The aim is to gather focused, qualitative descriptive data about the
decision-making processes and outcomes in the three UGS planning and governance cases in
Guangzhou. The interviewees are selected based on the principle of maximising the variety of
viewpoints: individuals with extensive work experience, insights, or local knowledge from
each actor category - government officials, urban planners (including landscape architects),
urban governance consultants, academic researchers, land appropriators, and residents are
selected and interviewed.
Semi-structured in-depth interviews is an ideal data collection method for this research as it
provides the flexibility to follow up on valuable threads that emerged during interviews. Semi-
structured interviews are verbal interchanges “where one person, the interviewer, attempts to
elicit information from another person by asking questions … Semi-structured interviews
unfold in a conversational manner offering participants the chance to explore issues they feel
are important” (Longhurst, 2010: 103). It allows the researcher to begin with comparatively
general questions before shifting to inquire more specific insights later and allows both parties
to clarify questions and terminologies, therefore enriching the depth and validity of this
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research. Besides, during a face-to-face in-depth interview, researchers can observe the non-
verbal behaviours of the interviewees, such as body movement and facial expressions, which
are informative for the researchers to ask follow-up questions. Furthermore, face-to-face
interviews require interviewees to answer questions the spontaneously without much time for
filtering information or reframing.
Designing semi-structured interview questions

In the previous sub-chapter, the IAD framework, the variables and the logic of their interactions
are explained. In this sub-chapter, questions designed for the semi-structured in-depth
interviews are structured based on the variables and their interaction in the IAD framework and
are primarily open-ended (see Annex 2. Semi-Structured In-Depth Interview Outline) Three
major thematic parts are defined to understand the empirical part: 1) land resources and land
economics, 2) urban landscape ecology / green space planning, and 3) urban governance and
institutions. Based on these three thematic parts and the main research questions, 44 semi-
structured interview questions altogether are designed and are oriented for experts in each field:
1) for insights into land resources and land economics: government officials, land economics
scholars, and urban governance consultants are interviewed
2) for insights into urban landscape ecology / green space planning, government officials, urban
planning scholars and practitioners, and residents are interviewed
3) for insights into institutions and governance, which include government officials and
scholars are interviewed
Questions are both designed for the overall urbanisation and institutional contexts of China’s
urbanisation and the city of Guangzhou, as well as for the specific three case studies chosen in
the city of Guangzhou.
Selecting interviewees and preparing for the interviews

The interviewees for this research are chosen based on their knowledge and experience related
to the research topic, the socio-economic and political context of China’s urbanisation, and the
three case studies. 50 people representing different stakeholders/actors in the planning and
governance of UGS in Guangzhou were chosen to participate in the interview. The interview
questions are composed of both general and specific questions to capture information in detail
and to avoid misunderstanding. The aim of the interviews was to understand how each (group
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of) stakeholder/actor experience, interact with each other and make sense of their actions in the
underlined circumstance.
1) The initial method of interviewee selection: the researcher began the interviews with
academic researchers in the researcher’s professional network who were often consulted by the
local governments on urban (UGS) planning issues and were friendly and supportive of this
research project.
2) The following method of interviewee selection: the researcher asked the academic
researchers who were interviewed to recommend potential interviewees, who could be
government officials, urban planning professionals, consultants or others who are familiar with
the context of this empirical research and the three case studies. The request of interviewee
recommendations iterated several rounds until the researcher considered that sufficient data
was collected for writing this PhD thesis.
3) Interview preparation: prior to the interviews, the interviewees were invited to sign a form
of inform consent for the interview (see Annex 1. Form of Informed Consent for Interview
采访同意书, and to indicate their preference of data recording method (hand notes, audio
recording, or video recording). In addition, to enable the most comfortable ambient conditions
for the interviewees, most of the interviews took place at the interviewees’ work location/office,
while a handful of the interviews were conducted via phone calls due to the impossibility of
physical in-person meetings.
4.2.1.2 Archival research

In addition to the qualitative semi-structured interviews, this research also contains an in-depth
inquiry into policy and media archives, print and digital, to collect complimentary data.
Archival evidence can provide the researcher with original and formal policies, plans, and
technical reports in details, which are valuable sources to understand policymakers’
perceptions of the projects at the time and the cost-benefit calculations within their historical,
situational, and communication contexts (Larson, 2017). Archival methods are considered
beneficial for the robustness, contextuality and holism, particularly of a research endeavour
that relates to the study of organisations in multi-disciplinary undertakings (Das et al., 2018).
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The archival research conducted for this thesis contains altogether 88 documents, including
strategic plans, conceptual plans, action plans, macro socio-economic development plans,
special plans, government reports, assessment reports, communiqués, and regulation, all of
which are effective between 2001–2019, the study period of this thesis (see Annex 5. List of
Policy Documents).
1) Strategic plans entailing policies and actions at national and local levels on climate
change, sustainable development (SDGs), public health, ecological protection,
urbanisation, and instructional reform
2) Conceptual plans on how to concretise the concept of Ecological Civilisation and the
concept of urban ecological corridor network
3) Action plans on air pollution prevention and control at the national level
4) Macro socio-economic development plans: including all the Five-Year Plans between
2000 and 2019 at central and municipal levels
5) Special plan on how to implement Sponge City at the local level
6) Government reports on China’s actions and policies on climate change and the work
of the local governments of Guangzhou in general
7) Assessment reports on the implementation of the ecological corridor network in
Guangzhou
8) Communiques of national land greening status during 2001-2019
9) Regulation on national environmental protection, the latest revision in 2014
10) Technical guidelines on the implementation of the ecological corridor network and the
Sponge City program
These archival data come primarily from four sources:

1) Websites of the State Council, ministries, municipal and district governments
2) Physical archives located in government buildings (via in-person visits)
3) Physical documents shared/gifted by urban planning professionals exclusively for this
study (via in-person meeting exchange)
It is necessary to note that none of the archival data collected is technically confidential;
however, some of the documents are made for internal government reference, which has
not been released to the public and will not be.
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4.2.1.3 Observation
Observation is the systematic description of the events, behaviours, and artefacts of a social
setting (Marshall and Rossman, 2016: 143). It is a mature method often used in ethnographic,
anthropological, and behavioural science studies (Baker, 2006; Jersild and Meigs, 1939).
Observation is an ideal method to understand complex human phenomena, as it permits
researchers to study people in their native environment to gain a more comprehensive and
holistic understanding of the people and events from the researchers’ perspective. It is a
context-sensitive method complementary to direct interviews or laboratory measures and can
capture aspects related to the social behaviour and preferences of the actors studied (Baker,
2006; DeWalt and DeWalt, 2010; Prus and Jorgensen, 1990). Using observation, the researcher
can obtain firsthand insights into the mundane detail of interviewees’ behaviours, attitudes, and
language. It allows the researcher to learn about issues the interviewee may be unaware of, are
unwilling or unable to discuss candidly during an interview (Frechtling et al., 2002).
This thesis uses observation as a complementary method to the two other qualitative data
collection methods - semi-structured in-depth interviews and archival research. To the best
ability, the observation is conducted respecting the principles of authenticity, trustworthiness,
reflexivity, and particularity (Patton, 2015). The observation is conducted unstructured in
natural settings alongside semi-structured interviews, in which the researcher and the
interviewees have established informed consent and trust. The observation data obtained for
this research exists primarily in the form of fieldnotes, which contain descriptions of the
interview activities, interactions and behaviours of interviewees, actions of each actor and
processes of the three cases from planning to implementation and management. The fieldnotes
are then coded and analysed together with the interview transcripts.
4.2.2 Ethical considerations

• Data confidentiality: interviewees were invited to participate in the semi-structured, in-
depth interviews voluntarily and was ensured that their answers would be kept confidential
and used solely for the purpose of this research. All the interview data was collected, either
in audio recording or just hand-written notes depending on the interviewees’ preference,
and then stored and treated in a confidential, anonymous, and codified way.
• Protection and anonymisation of interviewees: the interviewees were invited to sign a
consent form (see Annex 1. Form of Informed Consent for Interview
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• 采访同意书) prior to the interviews with the researcher.
• Data quality control: as introduced in the data collection methods above, there are multiple
data sources and multiple methods to strengthen the credibility and robustness of the data.
Besides, all the interviewees are invited to sign a form of consent prior to participating in
the interviews, indicating their preferences of data collection (via audio recording or only
handwritten notes). Prior to the interviews, they are also guaranteed that the interview
subjects will be non-sensitive, non-discriminative and non-incriminating. Furthermore, this
thesis contains a substantial chapter of contextualisation of the empirical study (see Chapter
V), in order to explain why these kinds of qualitative data are collected (Krippendorff,
2018).
4.2.3 Data collection timeframe

The researcher has spent an extensive amount of time in the field study location, Guangzhou,
China, to gather data to ensure the depth, plurality, and complexity of the data for this
qualitative case-based research. This includes four phases of data collection of nine months in
total, between December 2017 – August 2019.
Dec 2017- Jan July - Sep 2018 Dec 2018 - Feb End-May - Mid-Jun 2019 &
Phases
2018 (2 months) (3 months) 2019 (3 months) Mid-August 2019 (1 month)
20 formal
10 preliminary 14 formal 6 follow-up interviews,
interviews,
interviews, interviews, archival Collect visual data (site
Fieldwork archival
archival research, research, images), archival research,
research,
observations observations and observations
observations
Table 7: Overview of fieldwork
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4.3 Data Analysis
4.3.1 Content analysis using MaxQDA
4.3.1.1 Qualitative content analysis

Content analysis is “a research technique for making replicable and valid inferences from texts
(or other meaningful matter) to the contexts of their use” (Krippendorff, 2004: 18). Content
analysis is a scientific tool that assists the researcher to understand phenomena starting by
recognising meanings and then systematically analysing them within a particular set of texts.
The IAD framework presented above as the analytical framework for this research and the
logic of the research questions are present throughout the process of content analysis.
Qualitative content analysis in the eye of a reader often has the characteristic of extensive
description and discussion. This is necessary to show multiple perspectives as well as to
substantiate findings, not only within the qualitative data material gathered but also the context
in which the data was gathered (Creswell, 1998; Krippendorff, 2004).
The aim of the qualitative content analysis in this thesis is to 1) understand the institutional
dynamics, facilitators, and underlying barriers Chinese local governments have faced regarding
the need and mandates to plan and manage UGS that could lead to more effective NbS, 2)
examine to which extent local governments have been able to advance and upscale UGS and
with what approaches, 3) analyse the costs and benefits that Chinese local governments have
taken into consideration for planning and managing UGS, and 4) identify intrinsic-value-
related factors that have limited Chinese local governments to pursue greater UGS quantity
and quality, and effectiveness of NbS.
4.3.1.2 Using MaxQDA qualitative data analysis software

This research uses MaxQDA, a Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDA software), for
organising and analysing the qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews, policy
archival research, and observation field notes. MaxQDA has part of its name ´Max´ associated
to the sociologist Max Weber and is rooted in social science methodology. The software
provides functions for transcribing, analysing and visualising qualitative data, hence can
analyse all the data commonly collected in the context of empirical social science research
(Kuckartz and Rädiker, 2019).A central feature of MaxQDA is the option of working with
codes (categories) and assigning codes to selected parts of the data in order to organize large
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volumes of text. As the empirical data in this social science research is qualitative and in large
volumes, MaxQDA is therefore a suitable tool for data analysis.
4.3.1.3 Organising data and coding

The data collected in this research include information gathered through semi-structured
interviews and from archival research, and observations fieldnotes. The researcher used the
mobile application “Voice Memos” as a tool to record the interviews when applicable. Some
interviewees only agreed to the form of handwritten notes for recording the interview contents.
Below are the steps of using MaxQDA software to process the data collected.
1. The first step is to transcribe and organise the audio recordings and handwritten notes. In
addition to full transcription files, a summary for each transcription is also produced to organise
and navigate effectively inside the software.
2. The second step is to categorising data and define variables according to the IAD framework.
In this data analysis, there are 7 categories, and they are the same as the first 7 variables of the
IAD framework: ①biophysical conditions, ②community attributes, ③rules-in-use, ④action
situation, ⑤actors, ⑥interactions, ⑦outcome.
3. The third step is to code the data within each category. The codes are generated by sorting
and sifting through the text within each category. Codes are created when thematic
commonalities are identified. Most of the codes have a set of sub-codes, or in other words, the
coded themes have a set of sub-themes which are even more specific. For example, the first
category ①biophysical conditions contains 3 codes or coded themes, which are then further
distinguished with a set of sub-codes or sub-coded themes (see Table 8: Categories, codes and
sub-codes for the qualitative content analysis using MaxQDA).
These codes and sub-codes serve to identify and mark the relevant texts for the content analysis.
Furthermore, the codes for the last two categories - ⑥interactions and ⑦outcome are matched
with the respective criteria in the Multi-Criteria Assessment (MCA) for the purpose of
conducting the MCA. This will be explained in the following chapter 4.3.2 Multi-criteria
assessment (MCA). For a complete view on the seven categories, 22 codes (themes) and 65
sub-codes (sub-themes), please refer to Table 8: Categories, codes and sub-codes for the
qualitative content analysis using MaxQDA.
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CATEGORIES CODES (THEMES) SUB-CODES (SUB-THEMES)

1) Natural landscape
1) Natural condition of Guangzhou 2) Location
3) Climate
① Biophysical conditions
4) Types of impacts
2) Climate change impacts on
5) Population impacted
Guangzhou
6) Future trends
7) Status of urbanisation
3) Socio-economic conditions of
8) Status of population growth
Guangzhou
9) Status of urban land-use
4) Environmental characteristics of the
②Community attributes 10) Environmental characteristics of the areas
areas
5) Socio-economic characteristics of
11) Socio-economic characteristics of communities
communities
6) Urban planning status of the areas 12) Urban planning status of the areas
13) Inter-departmental positionings
14) Central-local dynamics
7) Governance structure
15) Public-private relationships
16) Public-civil responsibilities
8) Traditional political philosophy 17) Traditional political philosophy
18) Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
9) Contemporary political philosophy 19) Scientific Development
20) Ecological Civilisation
21) Pre 2000
③Rules-in-Use 10) Environmental protection history 22) 2000 – pre-Paris Agreement
23) Paris Agreement - present
24) Typology of urban plans
11) Land-use and spatial planning system 25) Institutions of urban planning
26) Process of urban planning
27) Right to access
28) Right to withdraw
12) Property rights arrangements 29) Right to manage
30) Right to exclude
31) Right to alienate
32) Action situation in case 1
④Action situation 13) Action situation 33) Action situation in case 2
34) Action situation in case 3
35) Guangzhou Municipal Government
36) Panyu District Government
37) Haizhu District Government
38) Tianhe District Government
⑤Actors 14) Types of actors
39) Farmland owners
40) Urban migrants
41) Small (informal) businesses
42) Ordinary citizens
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43) Known environmental costs

44) Known environmental benefits
45) Known social costs
46) Known social benefits
15) Information known by actors 47) Known economic/financial costs
48) Known economic/financial benefits
49) Other known costs
50) Other known benefits
16) Information unknown by actors 51) Information unknown by actors
52) Not informed and not participating

17) Informing/informed
53) Informed but not participating
54) Agreeing
⑥Interactions 18) Partially participating
55) Coordinating
56) Cooperating
19) Substantially participating 57) Negotiating
58) Supervising
59) UGS goals from plans/policies
20) Plans/policies/UGS implementation
60) Implemented UGS
61) Informal changes (norms, values)
21) Changes in institutions
⑦Outcome 62) Formal changes (new rules, laws, regulations)
63) Climate resilience
22) Implications 64) Human health and wellbeing
65) Urban Climate governance
Table 8: Categories, codes and sub-codes for the qualitative content analysis using MaxQDA
4.3.2 Multi-criteria assessment (MCA)
4.3.2.1 Multi-criteria assessment (MCA) for qualitative research

MCA is a “structured approach used to determine overall preferences among alternative
options, where the options accomplish several objectives” endorsed by the UNFCCC for
climate adaptation planning and practices (Bell et al., 2003; UNFCCC, 2002). MCA can help
researcher understand dynamics between stakeholders during interactions and cost-benefit
considerations or other policy tradeoffs, as well as the quality of the outcome. In MCA,
attributes and indicators are first identified and then measured, by both monetary and non-
monetary dimensions. In some cases, MCA can also be achieved by measuring qualitative
attributes through quantifying their significance (e.g., weighting, scoring, and ranking). MCA
is frequently used for estimating the quality of governance by assessing the decision-making
processes, as well as the social, economic, and environmental impacts of relevant policies.
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A similar method conventionally used by scholars is the cost-benefit analysis method, a

comparatively more straightforward method used for project evaluation and can be viewed as
a part of the MCA method. Scholars have argued that cost-benefit analysis could enhance
understanding of urban greening benefits as people are more amenable to monetary than
ecological values; the benefits and amenities could be expressed in dollars (Jim, 2013; Nowak
and Dwyer, 2011). As a matter of fact, a few indirect cost-benefit analysis methods have been
applied to assess the economics of UGS as they are not a marketable commodity. For example,
the contingent valuation method explores citizens’ willingness-to-pay to use UGS to prevent
UGS loss or preserve urban biodiversity (Chen and Jim, 2010; Lo and Jim, 2012). Another
method is called the hedonic pricing method, which has been applied to analyze and estimate
property transaction prices attributed to urban greening and other natural areas (Garrod and
Willis, 1994; Jim and Chen, 2007). The problem with these methods is that they cannot
adequately address the complexity and transboundary characteristic of modern urban mobility
(particularly for a rapidly growing megacity like Guangzhou) and the potential of the
ecosystem services of UGS for climate mitigation and adaptation at the local level.
Compared to cost-benefit analysis, the MCA method can capture dimensions outside the range
of direct economic appropriability effectively (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2010). For example,
land as a resource of scarcity, its fertility may be appropriately captured by the farmer who
sells rice or apples produced on the land, in which case the land resource is called an
appropriable resource. However, the vegetation and the ecosystem which are supported by land,
the benefits brought by their ecosystem services such as provision, regulating, habitat or
supporting so far cannot be accurately calculated in monetary terms. In this circumstance, the
MCA method can address the indirect costs associated with UGS, e.g., the lack of UGS could
lead to chronic health and wellbeing issues (highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, see
Liu, 2021).
The MCA method is increasingly used in climate adaptation planning to evaluate better the
risk and uncertainty dimensions of climate impacts on the social, environmental, technical, and
economic spheres. MCA is, therefore, more comprehensive than conventional cost-benefit
analysis and can provide more extensive information to support policy making (Chambwera et
al., 2015). For example, equity is a crucial dimension to consider in climate adaptation planning,
which comprises the gains and losses and impacts on individual citizens and communities,
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especially vulnerable groups. Many of these gains and losses and impacts have low monetary
calculability. MCA has been applied to an increasing number of climate change adaptation
studies, including urban flood risk (Chambwera et al., 2015).
4.3.2.2 Applying multi-criteria assessment in this research
Developing criteria
The criteria used in this assessment (see Table 9) are developed taking references from 1) the
⑧evaluative criteria in the IAD framework, 2) the universal principles for effective
governance in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), 3) the
Technical Assessment Synopsis Reports of the European Green Capital Award, 28 and 4) the
Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) guideline 29 for ENavi - the Energy Transition Navigation
System developed under the German Energiewende national energy transition scheme.
First, taking the ⑧evaluative criteria in the IAD framework as the initial reference helps to
maintain the logical structure of the analysis as well as the theoretical rigor of this research.
These evaluative criteria are: 1) Economic efficiency, 2) Equity, 3) Adaptability, resilience, and
robustness, 4) Accountability, 5) Conformance to general morality (for more detailed
definitions of these five criteria, please revisit Section 3.5 Analysing Common-Pool Resource
Governance through the IAD Framework). Despite that the IAD framework has been well
acclaimed by scholars for its overall potential in analysing CPR governance, the ⑧evaluative
criteria is the least developed part subjected to future contestation as scholar research advances
(Cole, 2017). Considering that this is also the most flexible part of the IAD framework that
allows context-specific readjustments, it is therefore used as an initial reference.
Second, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment´s four universal core principles of effective
governance contribute to the MCA particularly on the dynamics between governments and
non-state actors during interactions, thereby can complement the initial reference. These four
principles are: 1) compliance, 2) legitimacy, 3) interlinkages between institutions, and 4)
28
https://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/wp-
content/uploads/2013/02/EGCA_2020_Technical_Assessment_Synopsis_Report.pdf
29 Rainer Quitzow. 2019. A Sustainable Energy Transition: New Guidelines for Multi-Criteria Evaluation.
https://www.iass-potsdam.de/en/news/energiewende-guidelines-multi-criteria-evaluation
111
adequate financing. Compliance describes the degree to which governments follow formal
rules and obligations imposed by a higher-level government (also considered a transaction-cost
factor). Legitimacy includes the clarity of the rules, the interpreted coherence of the rules and
their adherence to the existing hierarchy of rules (e.g., if the current UGS planning in
Guangzhou adheres to national environmental agendas such as Ecological Civilisation). And
then, the interlinkages between institutions also influence the effectiveness of governance, as
often several institutions work together to formulate and implement urban plans to ensure
effectiveness. Furthermore, adequate financing is important for supporting proper
implementation (Fisher et al., 2005).
Third, the European Green Capital Award (EGCA) is an initiative launched by the European
Commission aiming to recognise cities leading the way on environmentally friendly urban
living. Hence, it is also an adequate reference to complement the MCA, particularly from an
urban planning practice and governance perspective.
Fourth, The Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation (the Guangzhou Award) 30
is established to recognise innovation in projects, measures or policies in cities and local
governments that improve social, economic, and environmental sustainability. The Award is
hosted by the City of Guangzhou and co-sponsored by the United Cities and Local
Governments (UCLG), the World Association of the Major Metropolises (Metropolis). The
criteria applied to the assessment for the Award include 1) innovativeness, 2) effectiveness, 3)
replicability and transferability, 4) significance and relevance to the SDGs and the New Urban
Agenda (NUA). This reference adds a more context-specific reference on urban governance
(Bina, 2008), hence is also supportive for developing the criteria for the MCA in this research.
Lastly, the MCE guideline for analysing ENavi (the Energy Transition Navigation System
developed under the German Energiewende national energy transition scheme) is developed
by the Potsdam Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in 2018. This evaluation
guideline includes ten criteria divided into three groups highlighting the many different aspects
of sustainability. Therefore, this reference is also competent for complementing the MCA in
this research.
30
The Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation. Available at: http://www.guangzhouaward.org/
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INITIAL &
STRUCTURAL COMPLEMENTARY REFERENCES
REFERENCE
Millennium Guangzhou
European Green ENavi
IAD framework Ecosystem Award for Urban
Capital Award – Energiewende
Assessment Innovation
Evaluating targets
1. Effectiveness
2. Cost efficiency
1. Climate Change
3. Total costs
Mitigation
4. Resilience (as a more broadly
1. Economic 2. Climate Change 1. Innovativeness
defined form of supply security)
efficiency 1. Compliance Adaptation
3. Sustainable Urban
Evaluating “side effects”
2. Equity 2. Legitimacy Mobility 2. Effectiveness
5. Economic predictability and
4. Sustainable Land Use
contribution to the common
3. Adaptability, 3. 5. Nature and
good
resilience, and Interlinkages Biodiversity 3. Replicability and
6. Health and environmental
robustness between 6. Air Quality transferability
protection and resource
institutions 7. Noise
conservation
4. Accountability 8. Waste
7. Fostering social cohesion
4. Adequate 9. Water 4. Significance and
5. Conformance to financing 10. Green Growth and relevance to the
Evaluating compatibility with
general morality Eco‐innovation SDGs and the NUA
legal, political, and ethical
11. Energy Performance
norms and values
12. Governance
8. Legitimacy
9. Ethical acceptability
10. Legality
Table 9: MCA criteria for this research – an overview of references
Building based on the structural reference from the IAD framework and the complementary
references, a new set of criteria is developed for the MCA in this research (see Table 10:
Evaluative criteria developed for the multi-criteria assessment in this research). The new set of
criteria absorbed all the relevant dimensions and indicators from the references above and is
defined as the 2nd tier criteria. There are altogether 28 criteria covering the 1) economic, 2)
technical, 3) ecological, 4) social, and 5) institutional dimensions for the empirical case study
in this research.
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1ST TIER &

STRUCTURAL DIMENSIONS 2ND TIER CRITERIA
CRITERIA
1. Financing adequacy
Economic
2. Direct cost-benefit efficiency
1. Economic
3. Temporal efficiency of planning
efficiency Technical
4. Temporal efficiency of implementation
Institutional 5. Interlinkages between institutions
6. Cultivation of social cohesion
7. Inclusion of health and wellbeing benefits
Social 8. Inclusion of rights to access information
2. Equity
9. Inclusion of rights to monitor
10. Inclusion of rights to participate
Ecological 11. Environmental protection and resource conservation
Economic 12. Inclusion of economic benefits
13. Sustainability in land use
14. Environmental quality (air, noise, waste, water)
15. Ecological resilience (ability to stay resilient)
Technical/ecological
16. Effectiveness in climate change mitigation and adaptation
3. Adaptability, 17. Significance and relevance to the SDGs
resilience, and 18. Technical replicability
robustness 19. Economic predictability and contribution to the common good
Economic
20. Green growth and eco‐innovation
21. Innovativeness in governance
Institutional 22. Institutional adaptability (changes over time)
23. Transferability of practices
24. Compliance with upper-level governments and agendas
4. Accountability Institutional
25. Administrative accountability within own level
5. Conformance 26. Information transparency
to general Institutional 27. Legitimacy (conformity to the law)
morality 28. Ethical acceptability
Table 10: Evaluative criteria developed for the multi-criteria assessment in this research
Evaluating interactions and outcomes

As mentioned in 4.3.1.3 Organising data and coding, the codes (sub-themes) for the categories
- ⑥interactions and ⑦outcome are matched with the respective criteria in MCA. The match
is presented in Table 11: MCA criteria matched with the ⑥Interactions and ⑦Outcomes of
three case studies for evaluation.
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1ST TIER & CORRESPONDI

1ST 2ND 3RD CORRESPONDING SUB-
STRUCTURA DIMENSIONS 2ND TIER CRITERIA NG
CASE CASE CASE CODES (SUB-THEMES)
L CRITERIA CATEGORIES
1. Financing adequacy
UGS goals from plans/policies
Economic 2. Direct cost-benefit ⑦Outcome
UGS Implementation
efficiency
3. Temporal efficiency of
1. Economic planning UGS goals from plans/policies
Technical ⑦Outcome
efficiency 4. Temporal efficiency of UGS Implementation
implementation
5. Interlinkages between
Institutional UGS Implementation ⑦Outcome
institutions
Urban climate governance
UGS Implementation
6. Cultivation of social Informing/informed ⑦Outcome
cohesion Partially participating ⑥Interactions
Substantially participating
7. Inclusion of health and
Human health and wellbeing ⑦Outcome
wellbeing benefits
Social
8. Inclusion of rights to
access information UGS Implementation
2. Equity
9. Inclusion of rights to Informing/informed ⑦Outcome
monitor Partially participating ⑥Interactions
10. Inclusion of rights to Substantially participating
participate
11. Environmental
UGS Implementation
Ecological protection and resource ⑦Outcome
Climate resilience
conservation
12. Inclusion of economic UGS goals from plans/policies ⑦Outcome
Economic
benefits UGS Implementation
13. Sustainability in land use
14. Environmental quality
(air, noise, waste, water)
15. Ecological resilience
(ability to stay resilient) UGS Implementation
Technical/ecolo ⑦Outcome
16. Effectiveness in climate Climate resilience
gical
change mitigation and Human health and wellbeing
adaptation
17. Significance and
relevance to the SDGs
3. Adaptability,
18. Technical replicability
resilience, and
19. Economic predictability
robustness
and contribution to the
⑦Outcome
Economic common good UGS goals from plans/policies
20. Green growth and eco‐
innovation
21. Innovativeness in
governance
UGS Implementation
22. Institutional adaptability ⑦Outcome
Institutional Formal changes
(changes over time)
Informal changes
23. Transferability of
practices
24. Compliance with upper- UGS goals from plans/policies
level governments and UGS Implementation ⑦Outcome
4. agendas Urban climate governance
Institutional
Accountability 25. Administrative UGS goals from plans/policies
accountability within UGS Implementation ⑦Outcome
own level Urban climate governance
5. UGS goals from plans/policies
26. Information transparency ⑦Outcome
Conformance UGS Implementation
Institutional
to general 27. Legitimacy (conformity UGS goals from plans/policies
⑦Outcome
morality to the law) UGS Implementation
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Formal changes
Informal changes
UGS Implementation
28. Ethical acceptability ⑦Outcome
Formal changes
Informal changes
Table 11: MCA criteria matched with the ⑥Interactions and ⑦Outcomes of three case
studies for evaluation
A 1-7 scale evaluation scheme is used with respective colours assigned for filling Table 11:
MCA criteria matched with the ⑥Interactions and ⑦Outcomes of three case studies for
evaluation: 1 - Very clearly negative, 2 - Clearly negative, 3 - Slightly negative, N/A - Not
sufficient information to assess, 4 - Neutral / Insignificant, 5 - Slightly positive, 6 - Clearly
positive, 7 - Very clearly positive.
1 Very clearly negative 7 Very clearly positive

2 Clearly negative 6 Clearly positive
3 Slightly negative 5 Slightly positive
N/A Not sufficient information to assess 4 Neutral / Insignificant
Table 12: The 1-7 scale evaluation scheme for the MCA
In summary, this Chapter introduced the research design of this thesis, including how the IAD
framework is used to structure the set of variables to be measured, the qualitative and case-
study-based approach, how each case study was selected and for how long they have been
studied. This Chapter also explained what the targeted data is, how it was collected and
analysed, including using the MaxQDA software for a qualitative content analysis and
constructing a comprehensive set of evaluative criteria for a multi-criteria analysis (MCA). The
next few chapters focus on empirical analysis, in which three UGS governance cases are
presented, examined, and crossed with the theories established in Chapter III. The next Chapter
follows by confirming the first three exogenous variables: ①biophysical conditions,
②community attributes and ③rules-in-use of the IAD framework.
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CHAPTER V
EMPIRICAL CONTEXT AND CASE PRESENTATION
This Chapter portraits the first three exogenous and independent variables: ①biophysical
conditions, ②community attributes and ③rules-in-use of the IAD framework (see Section 3.5
Analysing Common-Pool Resource Governance through the IAD Framework, and Figure 9:
The IAD framework applied in this research), through 1) contextualising the biophysical
conditions of the three case studies, 2) introducing the actors (Section 5.3), as well as 3)
outlining the institutional context of the three case studies (Section 5.2). The biophysical
conditions (Section 5.1) include the natural, socio-economic conditions and the state-of-art
climate change impacts in Guangzhou and in China in general.
5.1 Biophysical Contexts of China and of Guangzhou City
5.1.1 Natural and socio-economic conditions

China has the third largest land area globally with about 9.6 million km2, stretching 5,000 km
from east to west and 5,500 km from north to south with widely varying landscapes, including
mountains, high plateaus, sandy deserts, dense forests, coastal wetlands, plain fertile
agricultural fields, and more. The country is located on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean with
a continental coastline of more than 18,000 km and a complex and diverse range of climates
characterised by monsoon with high temperature and rain in summers, cold and little rain in
winters. The high-temperature periods are often consistent with the rainy period.
In addition, China is currently the most populous country with 1.39 billion population and four
of the ten largest metropolitan cities globally each hosting well over 20 million people.
Meanwhile, the country has the second largest economy distributed primarily along the eastern
coastline, particularly in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) and the Pearl River Delta (PRD). The
drastic divide between the eastern and western sides of the country both in biophysical and
socio-economic conditions is often marked by the reference of the Heihe-Tengchong Line (see
Figure 10: The Heihe-Tengchong Linean imaginary northeast-southwest line proposed by
Chinese geographer Hu Huanyong as a geo-demographic demarcation line. Thie line reveals
that the eastern side of China contains about 36% of China’s total land and is semi-humid but
supports around 96% of the total population. Whilst the western side of China marked this line
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contains up to 64% of total land and is semi-arid, but onlysupports 4% of the population (Pan,
2015). Considering such a high population density on the eastern side of the country, the socio-
economic needs are pushing the ecological capacity of the eastern side to the limit. According
to the Report on China’s Ecological Footprint co-released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development
(CCICED) in 2012, provinces in China that have ecological deficits (when the footprint of a
population exceeds the biocapacity of the area available to that population) grew from 19 to 26
between 1980-2000. The speed of change drastically outpaced world average, primarily due to
the rapid increase in both intensive agricultural production and fossil fuel consumption (Cheng
et al., 2012).
Figure 10: The Heihe-Tengchong Line
Source: Murphy 2017
Guangzhou is the third-largest metropolis in China and the economic, political, and cultural
centre of Guangdong Province located in the southeast close to the low-laying composite Pearl
River Delta 0.3 - 0.4 m below mean sea level (MSL) (Tracy et al., 2007) (see Figure 11 and
Figure 13). Guangzhou has a total urban territory of 7,434 km2 between 112.57~114.3° E and
22.26~23.56° N and a subtropical oceanic monsoon climate 31 characterised by hot summers
31
Chinese National Bureau of Technical Supervision.1994. Standard for climatic regionalization for architecture
(in Chinese: 建筑气候区划标准 GB50178-93).
118
and warm winters. The city receives abundant rainfall of about 150 days a year and average
annual precipitation of more than 1,800 mm, most of which during the flood season beginning
in April and peaks in June. Tropical cyclones tend to visit in summers (June-August), bringing
abundant precipitation. The hottest month of the year usually is July. 32
Figure 11: Geographic location of Guangzhou
Rapid urbanisation and land use change

Since the national economic reform in the early 1980s, the total built area in Guangzhou at
least tripled by 2010 (Zhou, 2010) (For a transformative example, see Figure 14). Before 2000,
Guangzhou's urban area only contained five districts: Yuexiu, Haizhu, Liwan, Tianhe, and
Baiyun (see Figure 12, marked in red letters). The other six districts: Huangpu, Huadu, Panyu,
Nansha, Conghua, and Zengcheng, were all established or merged into Guangzhou after 2000.
Panyu and Huadu were merged into Guangzhou as individual districts in 2000. The District of
Nansha was established in 2005. Conghua and Zengcheng were merged into Guangzhou as
individual districts in 2014, and Luogang District was merged into Huangpu District to become
the new Huangpu District in the same year. Today, Guangzhou's jurisdictional boundary
embraces 11 districts, including Yuexiu, Haizhu, Liwan, Tianhe, Baiyun, Huangpu, Huadu,
Panyu, Nansha, Conghua, and Zengchengoccupying a total land area of 7,434.4 km2 (see
Figure 12).
32
Homepage of the Municipal Government of Guangzhou> City Information> Overview of Guangzhou> Natural
Geography. Available at: http://www.gz.gov.cn/gzgov/s2769/sq_tt.shtml
119
Figure 12: The current administrative districts and their distribution of Guangzhou
Note: The red texts indicate the administrative districts established in or before 2000, and the
black letters indicate the districts established or merged after 2000
The rapid and extensive industrialisation and urbanisation Pearl River Delta area experienced
following the economic reform in the early 1980s plus the historically lagged land property
rights confirmation work resulted in the overall low land-use efficiency and evident urban land
scarcity by the New Millennium. For example, by 1989, five years into the implementation of
the 14th Urban Master Plan of Guangzhou (1984-2000), the city had almost used all of the
urban land quotas for the planned period (Dai & Duan, 2003). The appeal for urban land
expansion was extremely evident during the subsequent planning work for the 15th edition of
the Urban Master Plan of Guangzhou (Deng et al., 2017). The increasing urban land scarcity
and land needs in the vibrant economic development prompted the city to expand by merging
neighbour districts or cities. The landscape of Guangzhou experienced great changes between
1990 and 2014 with the tendency likely to continue(Gong et al., 2018). In 2018, the central
government proposed to integrate Hong Kong, Macau and nine southern mainland cities into
one huge megacity, the largest megacity hub that the world has seen, alias the Guangdong-
Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GD-HK-MO GBA), with the vision of turning a leading
hub for innovation and economic growth.
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Figure 13: Pearl River Delta in 1979 (left) and in 2000 (right)
Comparing to the previous image, vast swathes of farmland have turned from green to grey,
and huge new areas of land reclaimed from the sea. Satellite image 1979 and 2000
©Landsat/Nasa/UIG/Getty Images
Figure 14: Guangzhou South Avenue looking towards the river in 1991 and 2015
Left: 1991 ©Zeng Zhi; right: 2015 ©Alex Hofford
Population and urbanisation in Guangzhou

Guangzhou´s residential population grew from 5.9 million in 1990 to 14 million in 2016, and
the urban population accounts for 86%. Urban population is the number of residents who are
registered as urban households. The urban and rural household registrations are a unique
system in China which are invented initially to mediate population movements across the
country. To do so, the household registration systems connect urban and rural population to
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different sets of public service resources within their administrative region, including
healthcare, education, and housing, The Pearl River Delta, where Guangzhou is located, has
the largest urban agglomeration globally based on the total residential population (UN Habitat,
2016). The city’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased 56 folds, from approximately 32
billion (CNY, ~4 billion Euro) in 1990 to 1 trillion and 810 billion (CNY, ~226 billion Euro)
in 2015. All three districts selected for this study: Haizhu, Tianhe, and Panyu, became
Guangzhou's administrative districts by 2000. Urban development land availability decreased
drastically in these districts over the last few decades. Among them, Haizhu and Tianhe
districts are significantly smaller in land area and their residential population density is
significantly larger than other districts (also see Table 13). These two indicators are of great
significance from an urban land economy perspective. While Panyu District has mostly
industrial land even though the land area is relatively large. Since UGS is regarded as a part of
urban development land in the Chinese land use system, the total amount of usable urban land
and how it is being used are of great significance to UGS planning and governance.
PANYU HAIZHU TIANHE GUANGZHOU TOTAL
Land Area（Km2） 529.94 90.40 96.33 7434.40
Residential Population (Million) 1,641.1 1,637.9 1,631.0 14,043.5
Population Registered as Urban Households (Million) 0,886.5 1,022.6 0,867.7 8,704.9
Density of Residential Population (Per Km2） 3097 18118 16931 1889
Density Of Population Registered as Urban Households (Per km 2） 1673 11312 9008 1171
Size of UGS （Hectares） 1731.84 342.96 2605 15750.93
Size of UGS Per Capita (m2)/Residential Population 10.55 11.06 15.97 16.5
Table 13: Land area, population density and UGS size of each district in Guangzhou in 2016
Data source: Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Statistics and Bureau of Forestry and
Landscaping
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5.1.2 Climate change impacts
China’s geographic and climatic conditions as well as population distribution determine that
the country is highly susceptible to climate change impacts. Although China's climate is
conducive to the cultivation of agricultural products, the disadvantage is that the country has
frequent disastrous weathers, among which droughts, floods, cold waves, and typhoons are the
main hazards that cast negative impacts on the population often. Summer and autumn seasons
are when tropical cyclones or typhoons frequently hit the southeast coast of China. During the
autumn and winter seasons in China, cold air from Mongolia and Siberia sweeps southward,
sharply decreasing the temperature and forming cold waves, frosts, and strong winds, which
impact human health negatively and can jeopardise agricultural production. 33
Climate change is evident in China. From 1901 to 2017, the average surface temperature in
China has become 1.21° higher than the pre-industrial level, compared to the global average of
about 1.1°C (National Climate Centre, 2018). The sea level in coastal China rose around 122
mm from 1980 to 2017 (China Meteorological Administration, 2018). Looking forward, the
probabilities of continued sea level rise and the consequential extreme events, such as tropical
cyclones, storm surge, and coastal erosion, are very likely to increase significantly over the 21 st
century and the coasts of China is among the highly vulnerable coastal regions (Feng and
Tsimplis, 2014; Hallegatte et al., 2013b; Yang et al., 2017). Climate change has caused the 400
mm isoline of mean annual precipitation to shift around, but more importantly, has made
extreme climate events such as typhoons, storms, and floods, more intense and more frequent
in the east side of the Heihe-Tengchong Line (see Figure 10). Notably, one recent study projects
that 37 million people in China will be exposed to sea level rise and related consequences,
accounting for 53% of the global exposure (Muis et al., 2016). So far, climatic hazards have
costed an average $76 billion US dollars in China and affected around one third of agricultural
land (Asian Development Bank, 2015). While poverty rate has been drastically reduced over
the last few decades (Hu et al., 2003), many urban areas in China are not decently equipped for
natural hazards due to infrastructural creation failing to catch up with the speed of urbanisation
(Xiao et al., 2018; Zuo, 2014).
33
State Council of China Homepage > Basic conditions of the country (in Chinese: 首页>国情). Available at:
http://www.gov.cn/guoqing/index.htm
123
Guangzhou, as a low-lying coastal city in the Pearl River Delta, is easily affected by rising sea
levels. Its unique Asian subtropical monsoon climate also means that millions of people in the
city increasingly need to withstand the direct threats of tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall, floods,
high temperature and heatwaves, haze, thunder and lightning, and sea-level rise. Regular
heatwaves throughout the summers in Guangzhou have intensified in the last 60 years, both in
the number and the duration of heatwaves (see Figure 15). Since the New Millennium, the
threat of intensified heatwaves on the city became particularly evident. In the 2001-2010 period,
the number and duration of heatwaves in Guangzhou dramatically increased. Such is the result
of climate change and increasing heat-island effect, inducing great health impacts ranging from
insomnia, fatigue, clinical exacerbation to increasing transmission potential of malaria to death
from heatstroke (Du et al., 2013).
The China-UK Global Health Support Program’s research on Guangzhou finds that the higher
intensity and time length a heatwave possesses, the higher the mortality risks become.
According to the Guangdong Provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (GPCDCP),
each degree of temperature rise in Guangzhou has increased 3.7% mortality rate for the elderly
(≥ 65 years old) (Liu 2020). Furthermore, dengue fever is a common concern in post-typhoon
periods due to the stagnant groundwater and hot and humid weather. Climate change with its
intensification effect on the length and intensity of typhoons, as well as rainfalls, has
demonstrated significant impacts on dengue in Guangzhou (Xiang et al., 2017).
Figure 15: Decade trend of heat wave during the last 60 years in Guangzhou
Source: The Adapting to Climate Change in China Project (ACCC 2012)

124
Besides, tropical cyclones affecting the PRD Region in the last decade became more intensive
and brought heavier rainfalls (see Figure 16). The intensity of typhoons generated on the
western North Pacific and the consequential storm surges have increased due to warmer ocean
surface temperature and decreased salinity (Balaguru et al., 2016; IPCC 2014; Nakamura et al.,
2016). The typhoons which demonstrated destructive power in Guangzhou and the
neighbouring provinces between 2013-2017 have caused an estimated 2000 deaths in total
(State Council of China ,2014a). In addition, the increased intensities of the strongest tropical
cyclones and the rising sea levels globally are continuously impacting on the social, economic
and environmental determinants of mental health (Elsner et al., 2008b; Fritze et al., 2008;
Walsh et al., 2014). These extreme events may be leading to serious mental health problems,
such as fear and stress over exposure to greater disaster risks and post-disaster trauma-related
mental illness, possibly even including increased suicide mortality (Berry et al., 2010). The
impacts of climate change on mental health merit further investigation.
Figure 16: Numbers of landfalling Tropical Cyclones affecting the Pearl River Delta region from
1966-2015
Data source: HKO’s Tropical Cyclone dataset, 2016
Guangzhou has long been ranked as one of the most vulnerable cities in the world facing
climate change as shown in varies climate modelling results. The city was ranked as the second
most vulnerable cities among the top ten, only after Mumbai, in terms of exposed population
125
(including all environmental and socioeconomic factors) for present-day conditions (2005).
The impacts of climate change on human health and wellbeing are concrete, complex, and
intricate. These impacts tend to bring forth greater damages for physically vulnerable groups.
Vulnerable urban populations, e.g., rural migrants who are provided with very basic housing
conditions such as pre-gentrified urban villages and peri-urban areas and the urban poor who
possess weaker financial means, are especially vulnerable to the adverse health impacts from
climate change. The fact that climate change related mortality is on the rise could be an
indication of a lack of knowledge on how exactly climate change impacts health and which
actions can be taken to mitigate the impact.
Two thirds of the world’s largest cities are in coastal deltas; Guangzhou is one of them. Due to
the low-laying geographical feature, these cities are particularly vulnerable facing climate
change impacts such as sea level rise. A global chemistry-climate model projected that, under
the high greenhouse gas scenario RCP8.5, premature mortality from climate change-attributed
air pollution rises in all regions, with the most significant rise in India and East Asia, which
includes Guangzhou (Silva et al., 2017; Du et al., 2013). Research on vulnerability variation
from coastal regions to inland in Guangzhou indicated that climate change is likely to bring
stronger heatwaves in the future, thereby increasing heatwave-related illnesses and deaths (Du
et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2013; Zhu et al., 2014). The same China-UK research also finds that
heatwaves affect health more strongly in these Chinese urban areas where air-conditioners are
less commonly seen, and per capita disposable income is lower. In addition, recent research
also points to the intensification of cold spells due to climate change and that the cold spells
related non-accidental deaths in Guangzhou will increase in the future (Sun et al., 2018). By
the 2070s, Guangzhou is projected to still be amongst the top 10 most vulnerable cities in the
world, irrespective of the changes, and the social and economic loss could be catastrophic (C40
Cities Climate Leadership Group, n.d.; Nicholls et al., 2007).
5.2 Institutional Contexts of China

This Section introduces the institutional contexts of China, including the contemporary
development philosophy (the most prominent and recent one being Ecological Civilisation),
history of environmental protection, important national-level plans on environmental health
and climate change and the multi-level, nested hierarchical system of land-use and spatial
planning. These institutional settings together compose the third independent variable ③rules-
126
in-use (of the IAD framework) for understanding the three UGS governance cases in
Guangzhou.
5.2.1 Contemporary development philosophy before Ecological Civilisation
5.2.1.1 Socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics

Scholars consider the period between the founding of the Chinese socialist state in 1949 and
the economic reform in 1979 as the modern political period characterised by the communist
identity, state-controlled resource allocation, and the ethical norm of prioritising the common
good over individual good (Dallmayr et al., 2012; Li 2018). The period since the economic
reform is generally considered the contemporary political period marked by the state-oriented
market economy, or, as formally named, socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics
(in Chinese: 中国特色社会主义市场经济 zhōng guó tè sè shè huì zhǔ yì shì chǎng jīng jì)
(Cheng and Chen 2018). With the economic Reform and Opening Up since 1979, particularly
since the early 1990s, China underwent a rapid process of marketisation of goods and services
by privatising property rights orchestrated by the state. The process is accompanied by the
transition of governance and regulation based primarily on political means (or ideological
regulation) to legal means and economic means. State intervention in society, in general, saw
a decrease. The goal of the transition in the Chinese political and economic transition is to
develop a civil society through economic development, industrialisation, and urbanisation,
while keeping the emphasis on social harmony and the performance of social roles that the
leadership promotes within the country's contemporary social, economic, historical and
cultural context (Li 2018).
The lack of former references and experience challenged the central government in leading the
path to marketisation and industrialisation followed by the local governments. Problems
frequently arose, for example, the privatisation process, especially when conducted by local
governments, was not standardised, resulting in the devaluation and sometimes even corruption
of state assets. Besides, the central government's vision and agendas often did not align well
with the needs or interests of the local developments, resulting in coordination problems.
Furthermore, the economic dynamics fostered in contemporary Chinese society determine that
all levels of government not only provide policy support but also gain economic benefits. Local
governments have increasingly valued economic benefits, gradually prioritising projects with
high and fast economic benefits. On this basis, the state has gradually given priority to
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economic efficacy over distributive justice, not only economic justice but also social and
environmental justice.
5.2.1.2 Scientific Outlook on Development

After summarising the above problems and experience in the Reform and Opening up, in 2003,
the former president Hu Jintao stated at the 16th Party Central Committee Session that it is
necessary to "adhere to a people-centred principle and establish a comprehensive, coordinated
and sustainable development concept." In 2007, the 17th National Congress defined Scientific
Outlook on Development (科学发展观, kē xué fā zhǎn guān) as sustainable development that
is people-centred. This was the first time the term people-centred was made formally
associated with the notion of sustainable development. The goal is to address the high cost of
the “pollute first, control later” approach taken since the Reform and Opening up, and to
achieve comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable development through coordinated and
comprehensive planning. The objective is to "pursue comprehensive progress both at
individual and societal levels based on economic development, develop socialist economic,
political, and spiritual civilisation through coordinated means, and insist on achieving human-
nature harmony in natural resources consumption, ultimately achieve sustainable economic and
social development." (Literature Research Office of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China, 2005: 483). Furthermore, in 2006, the national government made it a strategic
task to build a “resource-conserving, environment-friendly society” in medium- to long-term
socio-economic planning.
5.2.2 Ecological Civilisation

This section introduces Ecological Civilisation, China’s current most ambitious national
environmental governance framework, in four parts: 1) emergence of the concept, 2) the
integrated reform plan of a more comprehensive environmental governance system, 3)
experiments and development of novel concepts including Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP)
and Ecological Asset (EA) for fundamental value change, 4) Ecological Civilisation
operationalised as people-centred development in the urban context, and 5) challenges of
insufficient understanding of the current institutional reform.
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1) China’s emerging national environmental governance framework

In 2007, the concept of Ecological Civilisation (生态文明 sheng tài wén míng) was introduced
into the National Party Congress Report as “a future-oriented guiding principle based on the
perception of the extremely high price we have paid for our economic miracle” and as a
strategic goal to establish a more comprehensive environmental governance institutional
framework (China Daily, 2007). The concept was proposed as a core national development
strategy in 2012 (Pan, 2015). Ecological Civilisation, according to senior Chinese development
officials, emphasises respect for nature and protection of people’s rights, and aims to achieve
ecological and social justice, improve efficiency in economic production and balance of
regional differences, and secure quality life for the people (Pan, 2015).
The concept of Ecological Civilisation builds upon the realisation that gradually came through
about the high ecological footprint and unsustainability of the Western Industrialisation
development pathway, after following this model for more than three decades. China has
achieved great economic success but, in the meantime, experienced severe environment
deterioration, increasing inequality, and loss of critical ecological assets. The Western
development model since the Industrial Revolution has been increasingly referred to by
scholars as the “develop (the economy) first and treat (the environment) later” model (先发展
后治理 xiān fā zhǎn hòu zhì lǐ). In fact, as early as in the 1920s, British historian Bertrand
Russell (2009) argued that industrialism is a threat to human freedom, especially mental
freedom because of its fundamentally exclusive nature (private property), uninspiring form
(mechanistic outlook), and egoistic political purpose (nationalism). Entering the 1960s, a series
of environmental incidents prompt a broad societal reflection on economic growth and
environmental movement. Rachel Carson (2000) described a world possibly without birds,
bees and butterflies due to the extensive use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Donella
Meadows (1972) inquired about the quantitative constraint of global resources and the system
of production on human socio-economic activities and emphasised the criticality of redirecting
society toward global economic and ecological equilibrium instead of growth.
In addition, the Chinese traditional thoughts of Nature, such as the “human-nature oneness”
from Taoism (also see Chapter 2.1.2 Ecological notion and Governance philosophy in China),
has gradually become the philosophical foundation which formed the principle of Ecological
Civilisation. In China, agricultural economist Ye Qianji first introduced the concept from the
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former Soviet Union in 1987 and further conceptualised it based on the traditional Taoist
thinking on the human-nature relationship (Xu, 2009). For instance, the Chinese sage Laozi
wrote in the Tao Te Ching, the 6th-century BC Chinese classical text: “Humans produce and
reproduce according to (the ability of) land, land produces according to the weather, the
weather serves the land according to Tao, and Tao is subjected to Nature’s grace (in Chinese:
人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然; rén fǎ de, dì fǎ tiān, tiān fǎ dào, dào fǎ zìrán)” ‘Tao
(道)’ in Chinese has the literal meaning of ‘way, methods, or principle’. The concept of
Ecological Civilisation is built upon the idea that human behaviours need to follow and respect
nature’s capacity (Pan, 2015).
In short, the concept of Ecological Civilisation contains explicit value prospects and
institutional goals necessary for building a new political philosophy in China that defines a
development paradigm highlighting fairness, efficiency, harmony and human development
(Pan, 2015). On value, the phrase “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” (in
Chinese: 绿水青山就是金山银山, lǜ shuǐ qīng shān jiù shì jīn shān yín shān) proposed by the
current President Xi Jinping has been widely promoted as an interpretation of Ecological
Civilisation - a value of respect for nature, co-existence and co-prosperity with nature. On
institutions, it seeks to establish a system based on regulations, rules, and economic incentives
to improve nature conservation and protection, production of higher efficiency and distribution
of goods and services of better fairness.
2) An integrated reform plan of a more comprehensive environmental governance system

Initially, the concept of Ecological Civilisation was criticised as vague and little
operationalisable (Marinelli, 2018). After defining the mission and main task of the future-
oriented guiding principle Ecological Civilisation, the State Council issued the Integrated
Reform Plan for Promoting Ecological Progress (in Chinese: 生态文明体制改革总体方案;
shēng tài wén míng tǐ zhì gǎi gé zǒng tǐ fang àn) in 2015 to put forward a more systematic,
comprehensive and better-coordinated institutional framework. As showcased in Table 14, this
Integrated Reform Plan established explicitly eight major working areas consisting of 47
working items of environmental governance (State Council of China, 2015).
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Major working areas and working items listed in the Integrated Reform Plan for Promoting Ecological Progress
Working areas Working items
1. Establish a unified system for determining and registering property ownership

rights
2. Establish a system of property rights for natural resources with defined rights and
responsibilities
Property rights of
1 3. Improve the state natural resource assets management system
natural resources
4. Establish a system for exercising property ownership rights at different
administrative levels
5. Launch demonstration projects for determining and registering watershed and
wetland ownership rights
6. Improve the zoning system of functional zones

Land space
7. Improve the regulatory system of land space use
2 development and
8. Establish a national park system
protection
9. Improve the system of natural resources regulation
10. Formulate spatial plans

11. Promote integrated planning at municipal- and county-levels
3 Spatial planning
12. Develop new approaches for formulating spatial plans at municipal- and county-
levels
13. Reinforce systems for farmland protection and sustainable land-use

14. Strengthen a system for water resources management
15. Establish a system for total energy consumption management and conservation
16. Establish a system for old-growth forest protection
Total resource
17. Establish a system for grassland protection
4 management and
18. Establish a system for wetland protection
conservation
19. Establish a system for deserted land close-off and protection
20. Improve the system of marine resources development and protection
21. Improve the system of mineral resources development and utilisation
22. Improve the system of resource recycling
23. Accelerate the reform for natural resource products pricing

24. Improve the payment-based system for land use
Payment-based natural 25. Improve the payment-based system for mineral resource use
resource consumption 26. Improve the payment-based system for use of oceanic spaces and offshore islands
5
and ecological 27. Accelerate the reform of resource and environmental taxes and fees
compensation 28. Improve the ecological compensation system
29. Improve the mechanism for utilising ecological protection and restoration funds
30. Create a system for farmland, grasslands, rivers, and lakes recuperation
31. Improve the pollutant emissions permit system

32. Establish a mechanism for regional cooperation in pollution prevention and
control
Environmental 33. Establish systems and mechanisms for rural environmental governance
6
governance system 34. Improve the systems of environmental information public disclosure
35. Strengthen the implementation of ecological and environmental damage
compensation systems
36. Improve the environmental protection management system
37. Foster market entities for environmental governance and ecological conservation
Market system for
38. Promote the energy-use and carbon emission permits trading systems
environmental
7 39. Promote the pollution permit trading system
governance and
40. Promoting the water rights trading system
ecological conservation
41. Establish a green finance system
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42. Establish a unified system for green products
43. Establish an Ecological Civilisation targets system

Environmental 44. Establish monitoring and early-warning mechanisms for environmental and
governance resource carrying capacity
8 performance evaluation 45. Create natural resource assets balance sheets
and accountability 46. Audit outgoing officials’ management of natural resource assets
system 47. Establish a lifelong accountability system for ecological and environmental
damage
Table 14: Major working areas and working items listed in the Integrated Reform Plan for Promoting Ecological
Progress
Data source: State Council of China 2015
These working areas and items proposed above were deemed innovative, visionary, and
ambitious (Li [ed.], 2018), therefore required a suitable and effective government system for
implementation. At that time, three main problems were identified in a national government
performance evaluation: 1) disarrangement of positions, powers and responsibilities of some
government agencies including central and local ones, leading to 2) inefficient performances,
and 3) the lack of effective power checking, monitoring and supervision mechanism (Wei,
2018). To improve the government system’s suitability and effectiveness and establish the
above-mentioned Ecological Civilisation institutional framework, the State Council issued the
Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues
Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform (in Chinese: 中共中央关于深化党和国
家机构改革的决定; zhōng gòng zhōng yāng guān yú shēn huà dǎng hé guó jiā jī gòu gǎi gé
de jué dìng) in 2018. The Decision gave instructions on how to provide institutional
guarantee for building Ecological Civilisation, namely, by “reforming the management
and protection systems of natural resources and ecological environments, and building
an environmental governance system led by state, primarily participated by market, and
co-participated by societal organisations and the public” (State Council of China, 2018).
An immediate subsequent action of this Decision was the creation of two brand new ministries:
the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and the Ministry of Natural Resources,
concentrating the scattered responsibilities of different government departments on
environmental governance (see Figure 17).
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Figure 17: Institutional reform at the national level in the Chinese Central Government in 2018
3) Examples of experiments and development of novel concepts: Gross Ecosystem

Product (GEP) and Ecological Asset (EA) for fundamental value change
Human societies and the ecological environment on which they depend for survival and
development constitute complex social-ecological systems. Environmental and especially
ecological economists have long advocated for accounting ecosystem services that human
societies and economic development have benefited, with the support of less economy-centric
references such as the Human Development Index (HDI) and Gross National Happiness (GNH).
The Integrated Reform Plan introduced above proposed establishing diverse mechanisms for
assessing the ecological dependence, for ecological compensation, restoration, and
conservation based on quantitative evidence (Ouyang et al., 2018). Gross Ecosystem Product
(GEP) is defined as the total economic values of ecosystem products and services for human
welfare and sustainable development in a geographical area with one year as a time unit for
analysis (Ouyang et al., 2013). Ecological Asset (EA) refers to various types of ecosystems
that produce and provide ecosystem products and services, including natural and artificial
ecosystems based on natural ecological processes such as urban green spaces. The GEP and
EA accounting methods and experiments are also expected to lead to the development of other
ecological governance tools such as the ecological assets balance sheets and the auditing
system for outgoing officials' performance on natural resource management.
The work of establishing the GEP accounting system under Ecological Civilisation in China
has been based on many concluded or ongoing international ecological environment protection
work, including the UN-led Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the Intergovernmental
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Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the UN System of

Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) integrated economic and environmental data
framework, the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative, and the World
Bank Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) global
partnership program.
GEP accounting includes the total direct- and indirect-use values of ecosystem goods and
services, including ecosystem provision value (EPV), ecological regulation services value
(ERV) and ecological culture services value (ECV) (see Table 15). The math of GEP
accounting is expressed as: GEP = EPV + ERV + ECV.
Types of values of ecosystem goods and services considered in the GEP accounting
Types of values Examples
Ecosystem provision e.g., agricultural, forestry, livestock, and fisheries products, water resources,
value (EPV) energy and other tangible products that enter the market
Ecological regulation e.g., water and soil conservation, water purification, flood storage, sand fixation,
services value (ERV) air purification, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation
Ecological culture e.g., recreation, mental and physical health, tourism, aesthetic appreciation and
services value (ECV) inspiration for culture, art and design, spiritual experience, and sense of place
Table 15: Types of values of ecosystem goods and services considered in the GEP accounting
Source: Ouyang et al., 2013 & 2018, the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)
The relation between GEP and GDP: In theory, the GEP of the planet Earth must be greater
than the global GDP to account for the social and environmental externalities that the concept
of GDP failed to. The GEP of a country should also be defined as greater than the GDP through
institutional means for a country to be sustainable in the long-term (Zhu, 2017). However, for
smaller administrative units, GEP may also be smaller than GDP. This is often the case for
cities with a service-based economy and high population density (e.g., Shanghai, London, and
New York), which depend on imports of ecological resources.
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4) Ecological Civilisation operationalised as people-centred development in urban context

Today, Ecological Civilisation has evolved into a comprehensive institutional framework
encompassing guidelines, indicators, assessment methods, standards that orientate China’s
environmental policymaking and governance from central to local levels across land-use,
natural resource conservation, ecological protection and restoration, urban planning, pollution
emission control and many more. One of the main concepts of Ecological Civilisation is
“people-centred development.” As proposed by former president Hu Jintao, adhering to
people-centred development means “to achieve the goal of comprehensive development of
people, to seek and promote development from the fundamental interests of the people, to
continuously meet the growing material and cultural needs and to effectively protect the
economic, political and cultural rights and interests of the people” (People’s Daily, 2008). The
people-centred development principle emphasises economic growth to achieve the end goal of
fulfilling the material and cultural needs of people (People’s Daily, 2008).
The people-centred development principle is applied in the National New Urbanisation Plan
(2014–2020) to address the country’s widespread urban problems, including the
marginalisation of urban migrants and environmental pollution, and to transform its land-
centred urbanisation practices (Chen et al., 2016). This New Urbanisation Plan elaborated
measures on integrating rural to urban household registrations, improving public transport,
housing, utility infrastructure, health care and education services, institutionalising ecological
and environmental protection, and strengthening and developing new approaches to social
governance (State Council of China, 2014c).
5) Insufficient understanding of the current institutional reform under Ecological

Civilisation
Despite the strong political determination of the Chinese central government to conduct
institutional reform and create a new environmental governance framework, the process has
not always been smooth. A recent large-scale survey conducted by the National Development
Research Centre for local government officials and policy experts shows mediocre knowledge
rates on the content of the Integrated Reform Plan. Only about half of the survey participants
knew all the eight major working areas, and few recognised all the 47 working items. In general,
local policymakers tend to have better knowledge of the more coercive working items and the
ones with higher economic sensitivities, such as the auditing system for outgoing officials’
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natural resource management performance and the lifelong accountability system for
ecological and environmental damage, and the ecological compensation system.
5.2.2 History of environmental protection in China

Regardless of political philosophy, the development and modernisation of a society require
political ambitions and strategies to organise resource distribution properly. Development and
modernisation across different societies share the common elements of sovereign responsibility,
resource distribution, and a range of political means and ends. The Chinese government has
followed the international environmental agendas since attending the first UN Conference on
the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. Since then, the central government has
undertaken major reforms in the national environmental governance system, all towards
strengthening the structure and position of the national environmental agency and building a
more comprehensive institutional framework combining regulatory and economic instruments.
For example, the State Council passed the Environmental Protection Law, the Law on the
Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution, and the Environmental Impact Assessment
law in 1979, in 1987 and in 2002 respectively. These laws contained regulatory instruments
such as environmental quality and emission standards, discharge permit system, as well as
economic instruments such as pollution charges specific to both the types and volume of
pollutants (OECD, 2006). Central government´s determination for environmental regulation
was particularly evident between the mid-1990s and the New Millennium, explicating
environmental governance goals through various action plans and enacting new environmental
laws frequently, including the Five-Year Social and Economic Development Plans (FYPs) and
the correspondent Environmental Plans with industry-specific, time-bound targets. The State
Council launched China's Agenda 21 in 1994 (State Council of China, 1994), the first white
paper focusing on the nexus between its population growth, environment potential, and visions
of development in the 21 st century. In 1996, Sustainable Development was elevated as a
national strategy to guide the large-scale, rapid urbanisation process of the country. In 2003,
the former president Hu Jintao proposed the Scientific Outlook on Development (科学发展观
kē xué fā zhǎn guān) which can be summarised succinctly as people-centred, comprehensive,
coordinated, and sustainable development, or people-centred sustainable development (Pan,
2015) (also see Section 5.2.1 Contemporary development philosophy before Ecological
Civilisation). In 2003, the central government adopted a form of Strategic Environmental
Assessment (SEA) in order to insert more valuable notions of sustainable development into the
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country’s macro socio-economic development plans (Zhu & Ru, 2008). The central
government further proposed environmentally relevant concepts such as the “Resource-
Conserving, Environment-Friendly Society” in 2006 and formalised it as a strategic task in
medium- to long-term socio-economic planning. Major institutional reforms of China’s
environmental governance system led by the state prior to Ecological Civilisation are shown
in Figure 18.
Figure 18: Major institutional reforms of China’s environmental governance system led by the State
prior to Ecological Civilisation
Data source: Wang 2019; MEE; OECD 2006; State Council 1996, 2005 & 2011
Prior to the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) being upgraded to the Ministry of
Environmental Protection (MEP) in 2008, China’s environmental management system had
limited authority and capacity to be effective and efficient in policy implementation (OECD,
2006). That was due to the provincial and local branches of the SEPA being coordinated and
directed more so by local governments than by the SEPA hierarchically from Beijing. While
SEPA led a strong environmental agenda at the central level, local governments often still had
alternative priorities (e.g., economic development), leading to weak financial and institutional
support for implementing environmental policies at local levels.
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For this reason, the State Council has gradually made it a work focus to improve the institutions
for better local environmental governance, so that environmental agendas set at the central
level could be implemented properly. In 2011, the State Council issued the State Council
Opinion Regarding Strengthening Key Environmental Protection Work (in Chinese: 国务院关
于加强环境保护重点工作的意见; guó wù yuàn guān yú jiā qiáng huán jìng bǎo hù zhòng
diǎn gong zuò de yì jiàn), urging for 1) improving the level of supervision and management in
environmental protection, 2) focusing on resolving prominent environmental problems that
jeopardise public health, and 3) reforming and innovating the institutional framework and
mechanism of environmental protection. Furthermore, the Integrated Reform Plan for
Promoting Ecological Progress (in Chinese: 生态文明体制改革总体方案; sheng tài wén
míng tǐ zhì gǎi gé zǒng tǐ fang àn) (introduced in Section 5.2.2 Ecological Civilisation) outlined
more actions to establish a more systematic, holistic and better-coordinated systems for
environmental governance, including the creation of two brand new ministries exclusively
dedicated to environmental and natural resource governance.
Problems in China’s environmental governance history

The achievements of China's environmental governance in the past few decades are
applaudable, but were not without problems, which are summarised in this section. The first is
ambitious planning, which is a characteristic of the centralised planning system, as well as due
to insufficient understanding of the complexity of environmental problems, and knowledge gap
among local governments. The second issue is the stickiness to current development norms.
The performance of local government officials has been linked to their tasks of promoting
economic development and GDP growth in the last few decades. This stickiness of
development norms is also reflected by the weak political determination to implement and
monitor current environmental governance plans and progresses at local levels. The third issue
is the lack of good quality assessments on policy impacts and implementation outcome, which
are critical for providing lessons learned. Current assessments are often individual project-
based, result-oriented, and evaluated by institutions affiliated with the government, whose
objectivity is often questioned (Li, 2016). More comprehensive assessments such as the degree
of public participation, transparency and legitimacy are needed to provide lessons learned for
more effective governance. The fourth problem is insufficient public participation. Citizens
have not been fully mobilised to participate in environmental governance in China in the last
few decades. In many projects, even when citizens were encouraged to participate, they were
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limited to participate in monitoring and reporting and did not reach the level of collective
planning and co-implementation. Having relied primarily on limited government resources
without sufficient public participation might have been another reason why environmental
governance in China still has room for improvement.
5.2.3 Important plans on environmental health and climate change
This section introduces six major national plans on environmental health and climate change:
1) the National Environmental Health Action Plan (2007–2015), 2) the National Strategy for
Climate Change Adaptation, 3) the Action Plan on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution
2013, 4) National Plan on Climate Change (2014–2020), 5) Action Plan for Urban Climate
Change Adaptation, and 6) Healthy China 2030. These national plans have direct and explicit
reasonings for the significance of UGS and commands for planning UGS as actions for
respective environmental health and climate change adaptation purposes.
1) The National Environmental Health Action Plan (2007–2015) serves as the first national
guiding principle addressing the environment-health nexus and calling for actions. It is
coordinated by the Ministry of Health and sixteen other ministerial agencies. The Plan noted
that environmental degradation, the destruction of ecological balance, and harm to human
health has “increasingly become the key factors constraining economic growth and affecting
the harmonious development of society. The Plan strives to solve major environmental
problems that endanger people’s health and to further promote sustainable socio-economic
development. It has defined it as both a ‘basic requirement and an important task’ for
establishing the ‘people-oriented governance’ and building a ‘harmonious socialist society
(State Council of China, 2007: 3).’ This Plan highlighted the significance of resolving major
environmental health problems through environmental health assessments – namely, the
impacts of climate change on human health and coping strategies. The effects of climate change
on human health referred to in this Plan include the impacts of extreme weather and climate
events such as heatwaves, storm floods, dust storms, droughts, floods, and other climate
change-induced or intensified diseases. Besides, the Plan also emphasised the importance of
establishing early warning systems, emergency response plans, related methods and
technologies, and effectiveness evaluations of these interventions.
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2) The National Strategy for Climate Change Adaptation debuted during COP19 in Warsaw
in 2013. The Strategy was the first and one of the most critical sets of climate change adaptation
policies of the country. It outlines a systematic transition framework of work focus from
climate change assessment to adaptation policymaking, and it serves as guidance for cities to
make climate change adaptation plans at their respective level (State Council, 2013).
Specifically, the Strategy highlights human health as one of the seven important tasks to be
implemented by 2020. This includes: 1) establishing climate change-health monitoring,
assessment, early warning systems; 2) improving the control system of infectious diseases; 3)
wide spreading the knowledge and skills of health protection facing climate change, and 4)
enhancing health supervision and law enforcement. The Strategy defined the goal to protect
health from increasing risks of occurrence and spread of many diseases, especially
temperature-sensitive illnesses, and post-disaster infectious diseases. Climate change
researchers also back the necessity of establishing early warning and monitoring systems (Du
et al., 2013).
3) The Action Plan on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution 2013 is an outcome of the 7th
National Conference on Environmental Protection in 2011. The conference framed decent
environmental quality as a public good that governments ought to provide, which requires
resolving major environmental problems that jeopardise human health and development. The
action plan, thus, sets human health as both the entry point and fundamental interest, and has
laid out ambitious, specific targets from the national level to reduce ambient air pollution and
to improve air quality nationwide by the end of 2017. It aimed to reduce PM10 by at least 10
percent relative to 2013 levels across all urban areas. The most heavily polluted and most
densely populated urban areas in the country: Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Pearl River Delta, and
Yangtze River Delta, received specific targets to reduce PM2.5 by 25%, 20%, and 15%
respectively. For Beijing, the target was to reduce PM2.5 by 34% from the 2013 level.
4) National Plan on Climate Change (2014–2020). Several incidents prompted China’s

increasingly affirmative gesture on environmental and climate change governance. China
overtook the U.S. and became the biggest CO2 emitter in 2007 and gained international
exposure from hosting the International Olympic Games in 2008. Air pollution has become a
genuine concern of citizens as more evidence surfaced, indicating negative health
consequences. There is an evident change in the central government’s political gesture towards
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the challenges of climate change impacts. As shown in the National Plan on Climate Change
(2014–2020), climate change was deemed as ‘crucial’ in influencing the overall socio-
economic development, the security of energy, food, ecological environment, and human
health. Besides, the Plan frames ‘actively responding to climate change’ as both an inherent
requirement for achieving Ecological Civilisation, as well as a significant opportunity for
transforming the current economic development model. The Plan further frames it as an
‘international obligation’ of the country as a ‘responsible powerful nation.’
5) The Action Plan for Urban Climate Change Adaptation places a primary focus on the
role of cities in climate change adaptation, as cities host a significant quantity of social and
economic activities. The urban population in Guangzhou is exposed to high risks of severe
climate change impacts, mainly due to its high density. The Action Plan for Urban Adaptation
to Climate Change (State Council of China, 2016b) was co-carried out by the National
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural
Development (MOHURD) in 2014. The Action Plan sets the stage that ‘urban adaptation to
climate change is about the vital interests of the people.’ Besides, it supports cities to ‘actively
promote’ climate change adaptation by addressing public health, among other aspects
(depending on each city’s specific climate change challenges), in their pilot work programs.
The Plan emphasises that cities take action to adapt to climate change is an essential
contribution to achieving Ecological Civilisation. The Action Plan requires cities to make
‘more comprehensive and forward-thinking’ policies for climate change adaptation. For
Guangzhou, this implies making policies that incorporate updated scientific evidence to
manage the impacts of storms and floods more effectively.
6) Healthy China 2030. The State Council endorsed the Healthy China 2030 Plan in 2015,
which entered in effect in 2016. This is China’s first national medium- to long-term action plan
strategically focusing on health. It aims to promote healthy lifestyles, improve health services
and the health industry. Besides, the Plan outlines the vision of a sustainable health system to
provide essential health services to every citizen by 2020. The Plan defines health as a ‘basic
condition for socio-economic development.’ It states that improvement in national health
governance is a ‘proactive contribution to global health governance and fulfilment to the
commitment of 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda’ (State Council of China, 2016a). To
achieve these aims and visions, the Healthy China 2030 Plan puts forward five strategies:
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popularising a healthy life, optimising the health service, improving health protection, building
a healthy environment, and developing a healthy industry. In actionable terms, the Plan seeks
to resonate with the WHO’s Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach and to reach the primary
health indicators of high-income countries by 2030.
5.2.4 A multi-level, nested hierarchical system of land-use and spatial planning

This section introduces the Chinese system of land-use and spatial planning in three parts: 1)
the five-level administrative system and processes for land-use and spatial planning, 2) the
typology of land and spatial plans, and 3) the definition and standards of urban green spaces in
China.
5.2.4.1 Five-level administrative system and processes for land-use and spatial planning
In this section, the Chinese land-use and spatial planning systems are introduced together as
they interact closely within the nested five levels of governments. China’s land-use and spatial
planning system are composed of five levels of administrative departments at the national,
provincial, city, county, and township levels. After the national government institutional
reform in 2018, at the national level, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of
Housing and Urban-Rural Development coordinate land-use and spatial planning (see Figure
17). At the provincial level, the Bureau of Natural Resources, and the Bureau of Housing and
Urban-Rural Development coordinate. The city level (municipality and autonomous region) is
coordinated by the Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources and the Bureau of Housing and
Urban-Rural Development. Similarly, the district/county level is coordinated by the Division
of Natural Resources and Planning and the division of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
There are no offices set expressly for managing natural resources and spatial planning at the
township level; instead, the work is shared between the Economic Development Office and the
Urban-Rural Development Office at this level. In this five-level administrative system, the
agencies at superior levels provide professional guidance and supervision to the lower levels.
The process of land-use and spatial planning include planning, approval, implementation,
supervision, and inspection/assessment. The process involves institutions of technical planning,
administrative as well as specialist approval according to policies and a set of technical
standards, implementation supervision, and regulations.
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For forestry and landscaping, the Forestry and Grassland Bureau, subordinate to the Ministry
of Natural Resources at the national level, is responsible for the development and conservation
of forest and grassland resources. Similarly, a Bureau of Forestry is established at the provincial
level under the Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning to manage forestry production and
conservation. At the city level, a Municipal Bureau of Forestry and Landscaping is set up,
independently from the Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning, to manage forestry
production, conservation and UGS management. At present, no departments are set up
specifically for forestry and landscaping at the district and township levels. At the district level,
forestry and landscaping related work is directed by the Municipal Bureau of Forestry and
Landscaping. At the township level, forestry related work is handled by the Office of Economic
Development, while township greening and landscaping related work is handled by the Office
of Urban and Rural Development instead.
Before 2018, the work on environmental protection was be coordinated from central to local
levels by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Since the national government institutional
reform in 2018, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has been renamed the Ministry of
Ecology and Environment, and the subordinate levels have also been renamed, assuming
similar functions within their respective administrative areas. Similar to the work on urban
greening and landscaping, at the township level, for the time being, no departments are set up
specifically for environmental protection / ecological conservation, instead, the work is shared
between the Office of Economic Development and the Office of Urban and Rural Development.
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Figure 19: The current five-level administrative system of environmental protection, land-use and
spatial (and UGS) planning
5.2.4.2 Typology of land and spatial plans in China

There are three types of land by the use status classified in the Chinese national standard
Current Land-Use Classification (ref. GB/T21010-2017, in Chinese: 土地利用现状分类; tǔ
dì lì yòng xiàn zhuàng fēn lèi): 1) farming land, such as paddy fields and orchards; 2)
development land, such as commercial land, residential land, parks and green spaces; 3) non-
development land, such as river surface, marshland, and glacier. This classification indicates
that parks and green spaces are of a public service nature. Secondly, within the jurisdiction of
a city, urban land is divided into development land and non-development land according to the
current land classification standard Urban Land Classification and Standards of Planning and
Construction (ref. GB50137-2017, in Chinese: 城市用地分类与规划建设用地标准; chéng
shì yòng dì fēn lèi yǔ guī huà jiàn shè yòng dì biāo zhǔn). Urban development land includes
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land for residential, administration and public services, commercial and business facilities,
industrial and manufacturing, logistics and warehouse, road, street and transport, municipal
utilities, green space and square, and land to be defined. Urban non-development land includes
water areas, farming and forestry areas and other non-development lands. Again, UGS is
considered a type of urban development land in China (see Table 16).
URBAN NON-DEVELOPMENT
URBAN LAND URBAN DEVELOPMENT LAND
LAND
1. Residential, Administration and public
services
2. Commercial and business facilities 1. Water area
3. Industrial and manufacturing (excluding water bodies within
CLASSIFICATION 4. Logistics and warehouse urban green spaces and
BY FUNCTION 5. Road, street and transport squires)
6. Municipal utilities 2. Farming and forestry area
7. Green spaces and squares including Urban 3. Other area
parks, green buffers, and public squares
8. Lands to be defined
Table 16: Types of urban land and classification by function in China
There are several types of spatial plans in the Chinese planning system, including plans of
primary functional areas, land use plans, and urban and rural development plans. Urban and
rural development plans then also include several types: city system plans (macro-level),
master plans (city-level), district plans (for big cities only), detailed plans (detailed
development control plans), detailed construction plans, and special plans. Under the new
government institutional framework, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development,
together with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the National Development and Reform
Commission, prepares the national city system plans for planning at the subordinate levels.
Provincial governments compile provincial urban system plans. Governments at the city,
district/county, and township levels prepare master plans for their administrative areas,
respectively. In addition to master plans, governments at the city, county/district, and township
levels also compile the detailed development control plans per the requirements of the master
plan within their respective administrative areas. The plans mentioned above are all statutory.
Conceptual planning as a new type of urban plans has emerged in recent years as a more
forward-looking plan incorporating new concepts which do not contain legal effects but serve
as a reference of urban development and planning tendencies for planning professionals and
policymakers.
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5.2.4.3 Definition and standards of urban green spaces in China

As briefly mentioned above, the current Chinese land classification standard Urban Land
Classification and Standards of Planning and Construction (ref. GB50137-2017) defines UGS
as components of urban development land. In comparison to an older version (ref. GBJ137-90)
of the same land classification standard, there are changes both in the terminology of UGS in
relation to the population as well as in the minimal standards (see Table 17). Two things to
note: first, there is an improvement in inclusiveness from measuring UGS only for the
population residing in the city's central area (2011) to measuring it for the residents within the
boundary of the development land of the city (2017). However, permanent residents in the
Chinese policy documents refer to residents associated with an urban household registration.
Those who are associated with a rural household registration instead are considered temporary
residents, which are not included in UGS size per capita measurements.
Urban Land Classification and Standards of Planning and Construction

Version 2011, ref. GBJ137-90 Version 2017, ref. GB50137-2017
Green space per capita: the total green area in a city Green space and public square area per capita: the total green
divided by the number of permanent residents in the area and public squares in a city divided by the number of
central area of the city, in m2 per capita. permanent residents within the boundary of development land
of the city, in m2 per capita.
Park green area per capita: the total green area of Park green area per capita: the total green area of parks in a
parks in a city divided by the number of permanent city divided by the number of permanent residents within the
residents in the central area of the city, in m2 per boundary of development land of the city, in m2 per capita.
capita.
Minimum required: Park green area per capita should be Minimum required: Park green area per capita should be at least
at least 8.0 ㎡ 10.0 ㎡
Table 17: Comparison of green space per capita requirements in earlier and current versions of Urban
Land Classification and Standards
As for per capita park green area, different city development schemes hold different standards.
These schemes function on a voluntary base in which cities apply depending on their
development preferences. For example, for urban green area development, there are three
schemes: Garden City, Ecological Garden City and Ecological City, the standards of which
increase in turn (see. In comparison, for example, the European Common Indicator of local
public open areas, does not set a target and is not explicitly focused on green space but is based
on two criteria: 1) the percentage of citizens living within 300 metres from a public open area
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of minimum size 0.5 hectares, and 2) a distance that represents accessibility - approximate a
15-minute walk.34
Park green area per capita no less than 9m2 for cities with average
National Garden City Standards (in
development land per capita larger than 105m2 (alias the case of
Chinese: 国家园林城市系列标准)
Guangzhou)
National Ecological Garden City
Park green area per capita no less than 12m2 for cities with
Chinese Standards (in Chinese: 国家生态园林城
average development land per capita larger than 105m2
cities 市标准)
National Urban Ecological Protection and
Construction Plan (2015-2020) (in
Park green area per capita no less than 14.6m2
Chinese: 全国生态城市保护与建设规划
2015-2020 年)
Urban development goals for Ecological Park green area per capita no less than 17m2 and 20m2
Civilisation in 2020 and 2030 respectively
Distribution: The percentage of citizens living within 300 m from a public open area of minimum size 0.5
European
hectares
cities
Accessibility: approximate a 15-minute walk
Table 18: Size related standards for UGS planning in China and in Europe
5.3 Three Urban Green Spaces Governance Cases in Guangzhou

This Section introduces the three UGS governance cases in Guangzhou. It includes an overview
and the three respective cases, each containing the urban planning backgrounds, reasoning for
intervention, the interventions, the results, the actors, the timelines, and their respective
relevance as a case study.
Overall speaking, Guangzhou has a basic UGS structure that contains three main types UGS
resources. The first type is a network of seven major ecological corridors distributed across the
city. The second type is the major ecological hotspots, such as the Yuexiu Park, Baiyun Park,
and the Haizhu Wetland Park – the latter two are also referred to as the "Northern Lung" and
the "Southern Lung" of the city, respectively. The third type includes the small pieces of green
spaces scattered in between other urban infrastructures. Having had a basic UGS structure in
34 Aambiente Italia Research Institute. 2003. European Common Indicators: Towards a Local Sustainability
Profile. Final Report. Milano, Italy. Available at: http://www.cityindicators.org/Deliverables/eci_final_report_12‐
4‐2007‐1024955.pdf (accessed on 19 May 2016).
147
place, recent research points out many nuanced problems associated with the ecosystem
performance and spatial distribution. These problems could serve as an opportunity window if
appropriate institutional arrangements are applied. The vegetation landscape in Guangzhou's
old urban areas was characterised by small patches, heavy fragmentation, and random
distribution. In contrast, in the new urban areas, it was characterised by big patches and even
distribution. Compared to natural forests, these UGS in Guangzhou also have lower species
diversity and lower organic matter content (Guan and Chen, 2003; Li, et al., 2000). For
effective climate change adaptation, biodiversity, primary production, and ecological function
of these urban green resources need to be increased.
5.3.1 Overview of the three case studies

The three UGS governance cases in Guangzhou are: 1) Panyu Ecological Corridor (PEC), 2)
Haizhu Wetland Park (HWP), and 3) Tianhe Sponge City Demonstration Site (TSCD) (see
Figure 20). showcases the location of these three cases in Guangzhou city. These three cases
occurred across the span of the last twenty years, each representing different institutional
settings, namely, different combination of preferences, formal and informal, in urban
development, property rights bundles, and governance arrangements. The basic characteristics
of these three cases are presented in Table 19.
1. Panyu Ecological Corridor (PEC) case presents a conflict of interest between municipal
and district governments. In this case, the Municipal Government of Guangzhou (GZ)
aimed to promote a city-wide ecological corridor system, contradicting the economic
development interest of the district government of Panyu (PY) which would require the
land nearby or even within the PEC system.
2. Haizhu Wetland Park (HWP) case represents a conflict of interest between GZ, farmers
(land- and homeowners), and urban migrants (tenants). The land property transfers only
benefited the farmers but not the urban migrants due to the restriction imposed by the dual
urban-rural household registration system, leaving urban migrants’ quality of life poorly
attended.
3. Tianhe Sponge City Demonstration Site (TSCD) case represents a conflict of interest
between different branches within the municipal government, e.g., between the Bureau of
Water Affairs and the Administration of Forestry and Gardening. In addition, for the private
equipment and service suppliers with established connections to the conventional
engineering solutions through public infrastructure construction projects, their vested
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interests are challenged by the Sponge City Initiative as it is a nature-based rather than
engineering-based solution.
4.
Figure 20: Location of the three urban green space governance cases in Guangzhou
C1 = Case 1. Panyu Ecological Corridor, C2 = Case 2. Haizhu Wetland Park, C3 = Case 3.

Tianhe Sponge City demo site. Source: based on Google Map
Cases
C1: Panyu Eco-Corridor C2: Haizhu Wetland Park C3: Tianhe Sponge City demo-site
Characteristics
Period 2000-2006 2012-2015 2015-2017
Size (km2) No data 3.67 km2 3.57km2
Guangzhou Municipal Government
Administrative body
Panyu District
Haizhu District government Tianhe District government
government
Panyu district government

Haizhu district government Tianhe district government
Business/individuals with
Actors involved or Villagers/orchard land Other departments in the municipal
interests in land
influenced collective owners government
Residents in neighboring
Urban migrant workers Residents in neighboring area
area
land property right

Method landscape adjustment/conversion
landscape acquisition
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adjustment/conversion landscape
adjustment/conversion
Urban planning Guangzhou Ecological National Sponge City Initiative (under

Guangzhou Master Plan
basis Conceptual Plan Ecological Civilisation)
Table 19: Characteristics of the three UGS planning and governance cases in Guangzhou
5.3.2 Panyu Ecological Corridor

The urban planning background: Due to the rapid expansion, land consumption in Chinese
cities often outpaces the planned land use indicators defined in master plans, invalidating them
before theplanning periods end. In this context, the planning of urban green spaces is often in
a relatively weak position that often gets compromised by the urgent land needs for other types
of infrastructures for economic development. Such is the case for the Panyu District Ecological
Corridor in Guangzhou. Panyu was a county, a sub-level unit of cities by administrative
category and was independent of Guangzhou City before the New Millennium. Considering
the rapid urbanisation rate and land needs for future economic development, Guangzhou City
merged with the former Panyu County in 2000, making Panyu a district of Guangzhou. Panyu
District is in southern Guangzhou and the estuary of the Pearl River with a flat, alluvial
landform ideal for urban sprawl. The district was therefore at risk of losing land resources with
particularly critical ecological functions.
The reasoning for intervention: From an ecologist's perspective, urban ecological corridors
as essential components of urban green spaces not only because they perform the function of
ecological evolution in nature but also play a supporting role for urban development by
providing essential ecosystem services such as air, water and soil purification, noise-
cancellation, soil fixation, food production, education, recreation and many more. Therefore,
the principle of planning ecological corridors needs to respect and align with the spatial
structure of urban construction areas to optimise their potential to provide ecosystem services.
The intervention: The Panyu Ecological Corridor, one of the seven major ecological corridors
in Guangzhou (see Figure 21), was laid out on a 'conceptual plan' based on this principle. In
2000, Guangzhou's municipal government established a 'strategic plan' for more sustainable
urban development through planning, constructing, and conserving a city-wide ecological
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corridor network, alias the "Ecological City" plan (Xinhua News Agency, 2018). In the Chinese
urban planning system, both terms - 'conceptual plan' and 'strategic plan' - refer to planning
that has a suggestive and non-legally binding nature and that they would be considered in more
specific land use plan-making. Conceptual and strategic plans are macroscale, long-term plans
in which future projections of population growth, social and economic activities are considered.
The conceptual plan of the ecological corridor network in Guangzhou (see Figure 21) is
composed of four horizontal (east-west) and three vertical (north-south) ecological corridors
based on the major natural characteristics of the existing urban landscape. The three vertical
(north-south) ecological corridors were planned to go through Panyu district. The one referred
to as the Panyu Ecological Corridor in this research is the one planned alongside the S105
Nanshagang Expressway (S105 南沙港快速公路; Nán shā gǎng kuài sù gong lù).
Figure 21: Map of Panyu Ecological Corridor
Left: Structural map of the Ecological Corridor Network in Guangzhou. Middle: Current
status of land use of Panyu District. Right: Planned ecological functional structure of Panyu
District. Source: 1. Master Plan, Planning and Construction Guideline of the Guangzhou
Ecological Corridors, 2016 (in Chinese: 广州市生态廊道总体规划与生态廊道规划建设指
引; Guǎngzhōu shì sheng tài láng dào zǒng tǐ guī huà yǔ sheng tài láng dào guī huà jiàn shè
zhǐ yǐn). 2. Conceptual Plan of Panyu District Ecological Corridor (Qiao and Yang 2013).
The result: The third ecological corridor alongside the S105 Expressway (see Figure 22) had
gone through constant erosion. This part of the ecological corridor was initially designed with
a 500-meter-wide green space on each side of the S105 Expressway. As planned without
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having any critical natural feature basis such as mountains or waterways, but only based on a
major concrete highway, the green spaces in this area were particularly exposed to the risk of
erosion by the growing land demand for urban economic development. The fact that the
conceptual plan was not legally-binding meant the cost for contradicting other land interests
and implementing the plan was high. Consequently, various private construction proposals near
the S105 Expressway were either formally or informally approved, gradually eroding the green
space along the S105 Expressway. As a result, the initially designed 500m wide green space
on each side was reduced less than to 100m wide (see Figure 22). The intended Panyu
Ecological Eorridor was eventually downgraded to the Nanshagang Expressway Green Belt,
as referenced in recent policy documents (“南沙港快速路隔离绿带”) (Guangzhou Forestry
and Gardening Bureau, 2012).
Figure 22: Satellite image of the Panyu Ecological Corridor area prior and after planning
Left: prior to planning and construction of the S105 Expressway in 1999. Right: after
planning and construction of the S105 Expressway in 2016. The S105 Expressway shown by
the red line. ©Google Earth
The actors: The actors and roles involved in this case study include:
1) The Municipal Government of Guangzhou, which had the conflictual interests both to
pursue economic progress as in macro, long-term development planning as well as to
pursue the concept of “ecological city” by establishing an ecological corridor network
throughout the city
2) The District Government of Panyu, which holds a primary interest in pursuing
economic development opportunities
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3) The private business initiatives which desire to acquire land nearby the ecological
corridor for economic activities
Since the conceptual plan had no legal rigidity, the low costs to disrespect the conceptual plan
became a de-facto incentive for the private sector or the citizens to erode the green spaces
around the S105 Expressway and conduct economic activities.
The timeline
2000: Panyu became a district of Guangzhou; the Ecological Corridor Network Conceptual
Plan of Guangzhou was proposed. A size standard proposed for ecological corridors is: 200-
1000m by width.
2009: A detailed development control plan 35 was made to reinforce the implementation of the
parts of the ecological corridor network in Panyu district.
2015: A Conceptual Plan for eastern part of the Ecological Corridor Network of Guangzhou
was approved, specifying the controlled area of the S105 Expressway ecological corridor.
2018: An Implementation Assessment Report indicating that 10 out of 11 in total ecological
corridors in the Ecological Corridor Network Conceptual Plan of Guangzhou were
inadequately implemented, including the one alongside the S105 Expressway. The wording
‘S105 Expressway ecological corridor’ was changed to ‘S105 Expressway isolation green belt.’
Relevance as a case study: In this case study, the ecological corridor plan's implementation
had often been compromised for urban economic development practices for several reasons.
First, placing economic development as the primary goal for the country has been consistent
in China's governance history as a state since founded in 1949. The country aligns central-local
efforts to economic development in a top-down administration system and a concentration of
power. Second, Guangzhou's ecological corridor plan is conceptual, meaning that it does not
have the same legal rigidity as municipal master plans or regulatory plans, which are legally
binding. In other words, as a conceptual plan, it was subjected to modification depending on
the emerging needs or priorities in context. Therefore, the ecological corridor plan's
implementation costs, namely, the designed 500-meter-wide greenspace on each side of the
S105 Expressway, were higher due to the often need for conflict resolution. Third, the
ecological corridor plan's technical aspects – meaning the biodiversity and ecosystem services
35
Notice on the Controlled Detailed Plan of the Greening Corridors along the Four Expressways in Panyu District
(in Chinese: 番禺区四条快速路绿化廊道控制性详细规划通告).
153
of the corridor – were not given sufficient attention or consideration. This was reflected by the
lack of ecology experts in the planning and implementation processes, especially when
conflicts of interest rose. Lack of political priority, legal formality, and technical expertise
together constituted high costs for the Municipal Government of Guangzhou to complete the
ecological corridor plan, especially for the one alongside the S105 Expressway.
5.3.3 Haizhu Wetland Park

The urban planning background: The Haizhu Wetland Park was initially an area of orchards
referred to as the Guangzhou Wan Mu Orchard 36 run by farmers in the neighbour villages (see
Figure 23). The Guangzhou Wan Mu Orchard area is situated southeast Haizhu district,
covering about 8 km2. As an urban wetland located in the centre of the city, the Wan Mu
Orchard is an essential component of the city’s ecological system. Therefore, the Orchard is
also referred to as the “Southern Lung” of Guangzhou, to the “Northern Lung” – the largest
urban park in the northern area of the city – the Baiyun Park. Traditionally the Wan Mu Orchard
had served as a major agricultural field for the neighbouring villages, which are now
surrounded by the expanding urban construction and high-rise buildings in Guangzhou as the
city is going through a rapid urbanisation process. These villages, therefore, are also referred
to as urban villages. 37 In the Haizhu Wetland Park case, the provision of benefits from
establishing urban green spaces goes hand in hand with the living conditions of urban migrants.
The land transformed from farming land into a wetland park was acquired from farmers of the
nearby villages. Despite that financial compensation was made to villagers for their loss of
agricultural income and that some land was preserved for farmers to explore future economic
opportunities, appropriate planning and infrastructure remain lacking in these villages as they
remain collectively owned by villagers and are not converted into urban development land,
which the local governments hesitate to develop. Also, informal housing continues to emerge
36
The words Wan Mu literally means “ten thousand Mu”, with Mu as a traditional Chinese standard unit for land
area measurement: 1 Mu ≅ 666.67 m2.
37
In China, urban villages refer to a particular community form resulting from villages being surrounded rapidly
by the expanding urban construction and high-rise buildings (Lan, 2005; Liu and Gatzweiler, 2020) Although
located within cities, the land of urban villages is collectively owned by villagers and is not urban development
land. Therefore, the costs to build houses in urban villages are much lower than on what is legally defined as
urban development land. For this reason, housing costs, in general, are much lower, forming a primary factor
attracting urban migrants to inhabit those villages.
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in these villages, responding to a growing demand for affordable housing by urban migrants,
who have overtaken the farmers and became the major inhabitants. Despite becoming de-facto
residents of Guangzhou, most of these migrants do not have access to the public services such
as free health care and education in Guangzhou which their urban peers have, since the rights
to such services for these urban migrants are tied to their rural household registration of their
places of origin. In this sense, the local governments have marginalised urban migrants residing
in informal housings in the Haizhu wetland area.
Figure 23: Location and planning map of the Guangzhou Wan Mu Orchard Wetland Park
The reasoning for intervention: The above situation has generated several consequences.
First, the Orchard has been eroded by urban infrastructures as the neighbouring land demand
has been rising. The farmers made many temporary housing arrangements to meet the demand
of the growing number of urban migrants. Urban migrants gather in these urban villages as
these housing options tend to be more affordable. Although located within Guangzhou, the
land of these urban villages and the Orchard is collectively owned by villagers and is not urban
development land, which urban governments normally would have had the right and intention
to develop. Second, the Orchard area has been polluted due to the growing number of industrial
factories as well as urban migrants residing in the area without systematically planned grey
infrastructure. Third, the temporary housing arrangements provided greater benefits for the
farmers than traditional agricultural practices, which further accelerated the Orchard area's
ecological deterioration.
155
The intervention: To address the environmental degradation problem and preserve the
Orchard area as a key urban ecological hotspot, the Municipal Government of Guangzhou
acquired the land ownership right of 90% of the Orchard from the villagers, changing it into
state/public ownership, alias the new Haizhu Wetland Park, but keeping the farming land
function to conserve the ecological potentials. The newly Haizhu Wetland Park is designed to
be a semi-natural wetland-orchard hybrid ecosystem with a total size of 367 hectares (or 3.67
km2, see Figure 23). As a result of the 90% land property right transfer, the villagers/farmers
were compensated financially with a total sum of 4.585 billion RMB (~ 6 million Euro,
Municipal Government of Guangzhou, 2018) and the right to develop the remaining 10%
collective land. The Wetland Park project has received 16 million RMB from the central
government as subsidies for wetland protection and conservation. Till 2018, the Wetland Park
project has costed the Municipal Government of Guangzhou and the District Government of
Haizhu 6.3 billion RMB for the land property transfer, construction, and maintenance
(Municipal Government of Guangzhou, 2019a).
Figure 24: Satellite image of the Haizhu Wetland Park area prior and after conversion
Left: prior to conversion in 2009. Right: after land transfer and conversion in 2019. ©Google
Earth
The institutions: Besides existing government institutions, new institutions were also created
to improve the governance of the Haizhu Wetland Park. The Haizhu Wetland Park project was
coordinated by the Haizhu District Government, the land acquisition, planning, and
construction were mainly conducted by the Haizhu District Housing and Construction Bureau,
and the Water Authority, and collaborated by the Bureau of Landscape and Gardening. An
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administrative body named the Haizhu Wetland Management Office was explicitly established
to manage the Wetland Park. Besides, a research entity named the Haizhu Wetland Ecological
Science Park was also co-established with a local university – the Sun Yat-Sen University, as
an attempt to foster scientific research.
The timeframe
2009-2011: The Municipal Government of Guangzhou confirmed the ecological significance
of the Haizhu Wan Mu Orchard for the city and decided to take actions to protect it. An
international call was launched for the best proposals to re-design the Orchard. A winning
proposal co-designed by the Guangzhou Urban Planning and Design Survey Research Institute
and the Hangzhou Landscape Architecture Design Institute was selected.
2012: The State Council approved the property right transfer approach proposed by the
Municipal Government of Guangzhou. An initial budget of 4.585 billion RMB was approved
for the land acquisition and relocation of some urban migrants. The cost was shared between
the Municipal Government of Guangzhou (80%) and the District Government of Haizhu (20%).
A work plan for the land acquisition was formulated, and a bill was made to regulate the use
of the budget—the land acquisition of 34 thousand people in 11 thousand households across
the eight villages neighbouring the Orchard. The first phase of the Wetland Park was delivered.
2013: The Haizhu Wetland Management Office was established.
2014: The second phase of the Haizhu Wetland Park was completed.
2015: The Ministry of Forestry approved the Park as a national-level wetland park.
2016: The third and fourth phases were completed. Meanwhile, the State Council formulated
and promoted the national implementation of the Proposal for Institutionalising Wetland
Protection and Restoration (State Council of China, 2016).
2018: The Wetland Rehabilitation Plan for the Guangzhou Haizhu National Wetland Park was
compiled to formalise operational guidelines, standards, and targets for the Haizhu Wetland
Park.
Relevance as a case study: The central government evaluated Haizhu Wetland Park's
conservation effort as successful in ecological conservation. The biodiversity at Wetland Park
was recorded to have increased by 31.9% (District Government of Haizhu, 2016). The Haizhu
Wetland Park transformation was also elected as one of the "40 innovations of local reforms in
China's 40 years of economic reform and liberation" (Municipal Government of Guangzhou,
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2019b). There are several ways that the Haizhu Wetland Park is relevant as a case study of
institutional analysis of urban commons governance in China. First, the land acquisition
strategy employed in this case directly deals with the issue of land property rights and it
reflected the city government's cogitation in reducing transaction costs. Second, by reserving
the 10% collectively-owned land for the villagers as their livelihood alternatives, the Municipal
Government of Guangzhou yet could avoid another cost – the responsibility of having to
rearrange their livelihood and the associated costs. Third, the urban migrants, who are the de-
facto majority of residents in these urban villages surrounding the Orchard, have been impacted
negatively as the essential urban infrastructures and public services in these urban villages
remain poorly developed, the available housing also became more expensive as their supply
could no longer be increased, and density increased, as a result, the overall living
environmental quality for the urban migrants deteriorated. These negative impacts on the urban
migrants are factually hidden or neglected costs of the Wetland Park transformation, which,
even the newly created institutions of the Wetland Park could not address.
5.3.4 Tianhe Sponge City Demonstration Site

The urban planning background: In recent years, waterlogging, or urban inundation, has
increasingly become a challenge in many Chinese cities due to rapid urban expansion and the
layout of grey infrastructure. The current approach to urban inundation – using hydro-
engineering means for fast discharge has been found not only costly but ineffective for
resolving the problem (Xia et al., 2017). The increasing deterioration in the urban environment
and climate change impacts in Guangzhou determine that climate adaptation measures are
urgently needed.
The reasoning for intervention: While the subtropical monsoon climate characteristic brings
heat- and water-related climate change impacts primarily, it also highlights the potential of a
nature-based climate adaptation approach. Such a climate facilitates the rapid development of
green infrastructure. Guangzhou's humid subtropical monsoon climate is an exogenous
biophysical factor that facilitates the local governments in Guangzhou to adopt a nature-based
approach for climate change adaptation (see Figure 25).
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Problems Opportunity windows

• Climate impacts are significant in • Climate as a facilitating factor for
social, economic, and nature-based approach
environmental dimensions • Health and wellbeing standard
• Urban land scarcity - improved as results of GDP
environmental-economic conflicts
growth; people demand better
• Institutional inertia (long-term environmental quality
economic development priority,
top-down, low social capital) • Political pressure from central
• Fragmented spatial distribution of government
urban green spaces and biodiversity
Figure 25: Problems and opportunity windows of nature-based climate management in Guangzhou
Source: Liu 2020a
The intervention: The central government took the first systematic action termed “the Sponge
City Initiative” in 2013 to embrace urban green infrastructure as a nature-based solution to
climate change impacts (see Table 20). This initiative refers to actions that adopt new urban
green infrastructure or improve existing ones to enhance the ecological functions, particularly
stormwater absorption, storage, retention, purification and release for surface runoff control
(Liu and Sun, 2017). The Sponge City Initiative endorses three approaches: 1) conserving
existing major urban parks, green spaces, which deliver important ecosystem services; 2)
restoring degraded ecosystems; and 3) low impact development (LID). While the first two
approaches are ecosystem-based, the third one is characterised primarily by low-impact
engineering-based interventions. The basic standard for becoming a Sponge City is to absorb,
retain, store, and utilise 70% of the stormwater within an urban territory by applying the three
intervention means mentioned above. The Initiative sets the goals that cities should have at
least 20% and 80 of urban built-up areas that meet the standard by 2020 and 2030. At the
central level, the implementation is led by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural
Development (MOHURD) with financial support from the Ministry of Finance and technical
support from The Ministry of Water Resources.
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Main attributes Characteristics
Launch 2013
Responsible Lead: Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD)

government Financial support: Ministry of Finance (MF)
branches Technical support: Ministry of Water Resources (MWR)
Approaches Conserving existing major urban parks, green spaces

Restoring degraded ecosystems
LID
Standard Being able to absorb, retain, store, and utilise 70% of the stormwater within its urban territory
Indicator: annual rainfall-runoff rate control
Goals By 2020, 20% of urban built-up areas meets the standard

By 2030, 80% of urban built-up areas meets the standard
Pilot cities First group: 16 cities in 2015

Second group: 14 cities in 2016
Finance Funding from the central government for each pilot city varies from 400 to 600 million RMB (57-85
million US$) per year
Implementation via public-private partnerships (PPP)
Table 20: Overview of the Chinese Sponge City initiative
Notably, even though the central government has gradually made the Sponge City Initiative an
imperative for big cities and has chosen two groups of pilot cities in 2015 and 2016, Guangzhou
was not in the two groups of pilot cities. On a voluntary basis, Guangzhou also has adopted the
Sponge City Initiative and established the Special Plan of Sponge City Initiative
Implementation in Guangzhou 2016-2030 (Special Plan for short, see
Figure 26) under an extensive legal and policy framework. The framework includes the
National Environmental Protection Law, the National Water Law, the National Urban and
Rural Planning Law, the State Council Guideline on Sponge City Construction, among others.
Implementing the Sponge City Initiative on a voluntary basis means that Guangzhou must
finance its Sponge City construction independently. Thus, local officials were encouraged to
explore financing possibilities for implementation.
The institutions: At the local level, the Sponge City Initiative in Guangzhou is implemented
by the Leading Group of Sponge City Construction, which is primarily led by the municipal
government and participated by the Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the
Bureau of finance and the Water Agency. Each district is then equipped with the same
organisational structure to prioritise implementation. The municipal government aimed to
implement the Special Plan within a focus urban area of 1092.5 km2. The district governments
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are then responsible for implementing it within their respective territory. The Special Plan also
sets a range of technical guidelines and standards for quality inspection, ranging from urban
water supply standards to outdoor drainage, urban greening, vertical greening, and flood
control standards. These standards constitute the information necessary for implementing the
Sponge City Initiative effectively. The Special Plan puts local officials accountable for the
implementation by making it a key performance indicator (KPI) with possible sanctions in case
of non-compliance, which include non-reward or even demotion.
Figure 26: Guangzhou Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site
Left: Special Plan for Sponge City Construction of Guangzhou 2016-2030. Right:
Intervention area of the Tianhe Sponge City demo site. Source: Guangzhou Urban Planning
& Design Survey Research Institute, Source: www.turenscape.com
The Sponge City Demonstration Site discussed in this research involves a wetland park that
was converted from abandoned water pools and sweet water aquaculture ponds next to the
newly developed Tianhe Smart Industrial Park (in Chinese 天河智慧城, see Figure 28). The
Leading Groups of Sponge City Construction commissioned a private urban landscape design
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consulting company to transform this area based on landscape design techniques that are
adherent to the national Sponge City policy guidelines. The demonstration site is an important
part of the natural water corridor in Tianhe District, covering an area of 46.8 hectares (see
Figure 26). The low-lying site is composed of a reservoir, farmland, and aquaculture ponds. The
demonstration site aimed to address four challenges: 1) to deal with the local natural climate
(large annual rainfall and frequent torrential rains highly prone to waterlogging), 2) to reduce
water pollution in the Tianhe area and improve the water quality, 3) to create a water-adaptable
plant community for adaptation to the drastic drought and flood alternations, and 4) to provide
an open space that meets the leisure needs of surrounding residents.
Figure 27: Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site satellite images, prior and after conversion
Left: prior to conversion in 2013. Right, after conversion in 2019. ©Google Earth
Figure 28: Images of Sponge City Demo Site in Guangzhou - Daguan Wetland Park
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Source: www.turenscape.com
The timeframe
2012: The "Sponge City" concept was first proposed at the Low Carbon Cities and Regional
Development Science and Technology Forum.
2013: The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) launched the
Sponge City Initiative at the national level.
2014: MOHURD launched the Sponge City Construction Technical Guide.
2015: The first group of pilot cities, 16 in total, were confirmed and given financial support for
implementing the Sponge City Initiative.
2016: The second group of pilot cities, 14 in total, were confirmed and given financial support
for implementing the Sponge City Initiative. Guangzhou launched the Special Plan of Sponge
City Initiative Implementation in Guangzhou 2016-2030 on a voluntary basis.
2016: The first Sponge City demonstration site – Daguan Wetland Park in Tianhe District, was
concluded.
2017: The central government proposes that all cities should take the initiative to build Sponge
Cities in the Annual Work Report.
2020: The Guangzhou Municipal Government sets up an expert committee for supervising
Sponge City construction.
Relevance as a case study: The Sponge City Demonstration Site (TSCD) case represents a
conflict of interest between different branches within the municipal government of Guangzhou,
e.g., between the Bureau of Water Affairs and the Administration of Forestry and Gardening.
In addition, for the equipment and service suppliers in the private sector with established
connections to the conventional engineering solutions through public infrastructure
construction projects, their vested interests are challenged by the Sponge City Initiative as it is
a nature-based rather than engineering-based solution. This is thus a UGS governance case
which showcases interaction dynamics of multiple actors, within the public ones as well as
between public and private ones, and how institutions both at the national and local level evolve
over time.
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CHAPTER VI
ANALYSIS
The previous chapter contextualised the biophysical conditions of the three case studies,
outlined the institutional context, and introduced the three case studies, including the actors
and a brief portrait of the local communities (particularly in the 2nd case), which correspond to
the first three exogenous and independent variables: ①biophysical conditions, ②community
attributes and ③rules-in-use of the IAD framework (see Section 3.5 Analysing Common-Pool
Resource Governance through the IAD Framework). This chapter zooms in for an in-depth
analysis of all the variables except ①biophysical conditions. Section 6.1 analyses the
characteristics and tendencies of the ③rules-in-use in the case studies. Section 6.2 analyses
the relationships and power dynamics between all the ④actors or participants within the three
case study ⑤action situations. Section 6.3 analyses the ⑥interactions between all the actors.
Section 6.4 analyses the ⑦outcomes of the three UGS governance case studies, including the
outcomes of UGS governance goals, deliverables from national and local plans, as well as the
formal and informal institutional change incurred during the three case studies. Finally, Section
6.5 evaluates the ⑥interactions and ⑦outcomes through a comprehensive multi-criteria
assessment (MCA), as guided by the IAD framework (see Section 3.5 Analysing Common-
Pool Resource Governance through the IAD Framework, and Figure 9: The IAD framework
applied in this research).
6.1 Characteristics and Tendencies of the Rules-in-Use in Case Studies
6.1.1 Characteristics of the rules-in-use in case studies
The analysis in this section explains how these policy documents were used as different rules
to influence the outcome of the three UGS cases. The aim is to understand the institutional
dynamics, facilitators, and underlying barriers Chinese local governments have faced regarding
the need and mandates to plan and manage UGS that could lead to more effective NbS
implementation.
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In Section 3.5 Analysing Common-Pool Resource Governance through the IAD Framework,
rules-in-use are introduced as the information that forms a common understanding of those
involved to who must, must not, or may take which actions affecting others subject to sanctions
(Crawford and Ostrom, 1995). The rules-in-use, alias, institutions studied in this research,
refers to the formal plans, policies, and environmental agendas made by or agreed upon by the
Chinese national government, the municipal government of Guangzhou, and planning
institutes, as well as the informal institutional factors such as central-local political dynamics,
urban planning culture, and historical land tenure. The official policy documents and
government reports both at the national and local levels that meet these two criteria are selected
for analysis: 1) have cast direct or indirect impacts on the shaping, planning, and
implementation of the three UGS cases in Guangzhou, and 2) have documented these processes
(For the complete list of these official policy documents and government reports, please refer
to Annex 5. List of Policy Documents).
There are six main types of policy documents (see Annex 5. List of Policy Documents) in this
analysis:
1) strategic plans, which systematically set ambitions for the future and determine how best
to achieve them.
2) action plans, which help actors know what needs to be done to complete a task, project,
initiative, or strategy related to UGS planning and implementation, including steps, milestones,
and measures of progress, responsibilities, specific assignments, and timeline.
3) conceptual plans, which are used to introduce novel urban planning concepts and
communicate essential information on how to operationalise them. They signal a commitment
to a diligent planning effort but are not legally binding.
4) regulation/technical guidelines, which guide the technical operation of a particular urban
plan, including material and human resource input and basic standards.
5) government reports, which are generated to communicate information that has been
compiled as outcome of research and analysis of data and issues.
6) communique/official bulletins are similar to government reports as they are periodical
publications that are authorised to publish legal notices or announce achievements made around
UGS planning and governance.
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When distinguished by policy document type, the policy documents at the national and local
levels as the rules-in-use in this research have the following characteristics:
• The strategic plans and action plans at both the national and local levels serve primarily as
scope rules and information rules as they define the range of possible results by setting
anticipated and binding targets and more general directions of development.
• Besides, local strategic plans and action plans also serve as boundary rules and aggregation
rules as they define the geographic and demographic boundaries of actors and actions, as
well as how actors interact (collaborate, obey, cooperate, monitor, and more) to achieve the
action plans.
• Conceptual plans introduce novel urban planning concepts and communicate essential
information on how to operationalise them. Therefore, they serve primarily as information
rules.
• Regulation/technical guidelines function as position rules, choice rules, and payoff rules,
as they define not only material resources but also human resources (actors) and their
positions, choices, and possible sanctions if actors did not meet certain standards.
• Finally, reports and communique/official bulletins serve as summaries or feedback to the
scope rules and the payoff rules as they provide data to show the results of a particular UGS
intervention.
When distinguished by levels, the policy documents at the national and local levels differ in
their focus. For example, when serving as payoff rules, the analysis using MaxQDA shows the
national level policy documents as payoff rules primarily define formal institutional change
(see Figure 29). In contrast, the local level policy documents mostly describe known costs and
benefits in social, environmental, and economic dimensions (see Figure 30). In this analysis,
codes related to costs and benefits and formal institutional changes are considered codes related
to payoff rules, which define rewards and sanctions.
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distribution frequency in national level policy documents
distribution frequency in local level policy documents
* Each coloured square at the nodes represents a certain number of coded segments. The
larger the square, the more segments were assigned with the respective codes
A horizontal inspection on the impact distribution of these policy documents of the three UGS
cases shows that, the quantities of different types of policy documents vary in the three
cases; in comparison, the 2nd case has the most policy documents as support (see Table 21).
In the 1st case - the Panyu Ecological Corridor construction, there are five strategic plans and
two action plans at the national level, two strategic plans and four action plans at the local level,
plus a conceptual plan but there is no regulation or technical guide. In the 2nd case – the Haizhu
Wetland Park project, there are as many as 11 strategic plans and eight action plans at the
national level, five strategic plans and five action plans at the local level, plus a conceptual
plan, and at the same time, there are five regulation/technical guidelines. In the 3rd case – the
Sponge City demonstration site, there are five strategic plans and five action plans at the
national level, four strategic plans and five action plans at the local level, plus a conceptual
plan, there are as many as ten regulations/technical guidelines (six at the national level and four
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at the local level). Many government reports, especially local government reports, have
concluded on the development of the three UGS cases.
A vertical comparison in Table 21 shows that, the number of technical guidelines has
increased from the 1st UGS case to the 3rd UGS case, indicating that the state and local
governments are probably paying greater attention to the technicality and legality of the
operation of UGS planning and governance. Besides, the 2nd UGS case is associated with
far more numbers of strategic plans and action plans than the 1st one, indicating that the national
and local governments are paying greater attention to the importance of UGS in urban
development.
Regulation / Communique
Policy Strategic Conceptual
Action plan Tech Report / official
document type plan plan
guideline bulletin
Case 1 5:2 2:4 0:1 0:0 1:15 2:0
Cases Case 2 11:5 8:5 1:0 4:1 2:18 1:0
Case 3 5:4 5:5 1:0 6:4 4:15 1:0
Table 21: Ratio of national vs. local policy documents in numbers in each type within the list of
policy documents for each case study
6.1.2 Policy tendencies at the national level
This section inspects the policy characteristics and tendency at the national level through four
analyses: 1) the frequency of key policy terms, 2) articulation with international sustainable
development agendas, 3) intensity of key policy targets and 4) shifting patterns of
contemporary political philosophy. The aim is to understand the institutional dynamics, which
might reveal the facilitators and underlying barriers for UGS planning and governance in
Guangzhou.
At the national level, the most widely overarching and recurring policy documents are the
national macro five-year economic and social development plans (FYPs). Corresponding to the
study period of this research 2000-2019, five FYPs are analysed: the 9th FYP corresponds to
the period 1996-2000, the 10th FYP corresponds to the period 2001-2005, the 11th FYP
corresponds to the period 2006-2010, the 12th FYP corresponds to the period 2011-2015, and
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the 13th FYP corresponds to the period 2016-2020. Figure 31 shows the changes in the
frequencies of the four key terms ‘Low carbon (低碳 dī tàn)’, ‘Greening (绿色 lǜ sè)’, ‘Climate
change (气候变化 qì hòu biàn huà), and ‘Sustainable Development (可持续发展 kě chí xù fā
zhǎn)’ mentioned the five FYPs. Figure 31 shows a steady increase in the frequencies of the
term ‘Sustainable development’ and ‘Low carbon’, and a sharp increase in that of ‘Climate
change’ in the national FYPs.
Figure 31: Frequency of key terms mentioned in the national FYPs
Another critical aspect of UGS policy tendency at the national level lies in how actions are
defined at this level based on international sustainable development agendas. This research
finds several direct interventions on or related to UGS that the Chinese national
government plan to take to fulfil the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Six
targets altogether in three SDGs: Goal 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities, Goal 13 -
Climate Action, and Goal 15 - Life on Land are responded to with action plans by the Chinese
national government (see Table 22).
SDGs and targets Actions taken in China
Goal 11. 11.6 By 2030, reduce the Promote urban and rural green spaces actively and increase
Sustainable adverse per capita the size of green space per capita. Improve the management of
Cities and environmental impact of cities, urban domestic waste, promote rural domestic waste treatment,
Communities including by paying special and improve waste treatment quality. Develop a plan for
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attention to air quality and achieving urban air quality standards. By 2020, the number of
municipal and other waste days of heavy pollution in prefecture-level and above cities
management should be reduced by 25%
Control urban development intensity strictly and protect urban

11.7 By 2030, provide universal
and rural green and ecological spaces. Promote urban green
access to safe, inclusive, and
belts and ecological corridors combined with the restoration of
accessible, green and public
water bodies and wetlands, road traffic systems, and the
spaces, in particular for women
protection of scenic resources. By 2020, the green space rate per
and children, older persons and
urban built-up area should reach 38.9%, and green space per
persons with disabilities
capita should reach 14.6 m2
Actively adapt to climate change and strengthen resilience to
climate risks in agriculture, forestry, water resources and
13.1 Strengthen resilience and
other vital fields, as well as cities, coastal regions, and
Goal 13. Climate adaptive capacity to climate-
ecologically vulnerable areas. Gradually establish a forecast,
Action related hazards and natural
warning, and disaster prevention and reduction system and
disasters
establish a meteorological early warnings system with full
territorial coverage
15.1 By 2020, ensure the
conservation, restoration and
sustainable use of terrestrial and Maintain water levels in critical wetlands and estuaries.
inland freshwater ecosystems Protect and restore the ecosystems in wetlands, rivers, and
and their services, in particular lakes. Establish a restoration and protection system for wetlands.
forests, wetlands, mountains, Establish a legal system for natural land reserves and improve the
and drylands, in line with sustainable access to natural resources, including forests
obligations under international
agreements
By 2020, establish a substantial network of ecological
15.5 Take urgent and significant corridors and biodiversity protection. Launch major
Goal 15. Life on action to reduce the degradation biodiversity protection projects. Improve the management of
Land of natural habitats, halt the loss natural reserves, and increase efforts to protect typical
of biodiversity and, by 2020, ecosystem, species, gene, and landscape diversity. Increase
protect and prevent the investment in ecosystem protection and restoration and conduct
extinction of threatened species large-scale surveys on biodiversity. Establish a national
monitoring system for biodiversity
Require local governments at all levels to better protect
15.9 By 2020, integrate
ecological environment and biodiversity according to local
ecosystem and biodiversity
conditions and incorporate the protection measures into local
values into national and local
mid-and long-term development plans. Conduct primary survey
planning, development
and assessment of biodiversity and build a monitoring
processes, poverty reduction
network and database for biodiversity. Launch pilot and
strategies and accounts
demonstration projects for biodiversity restoration and protection
Table 22: Direct interventions on or related to urban green spaces explicated in China's National Plan
on Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
In addition, the intensity of key policy targets, including anticipated targets and legally binding
targets, within the most recent three FYPS is inspected. Anticipated targets are development
goals anticipated by the government without legal or political obligation to achieve. Binding
targets are development goals based on anticipated results that further clarified and
strengthened government responsibilities and are required to be accomplished by the local
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governments. The analysis, showcased in Figure 32, suggests that from the 11th FYP to the
13th FYP, there are more legally binding targets (green) and less anticipated targets (blue)
on Resource and Environment, as well as less anticipated targets on Economic Growth,
indicating a stronger political will of the Chinese central government for environmental
governance and shifting out of the economic growth focus. The analysis also showcases an
increasing focus on Technology and Innovation. The number and ratio between anticipated and
binding targets on Public Service and Wellbeing are about the same across the three FYPs.
Figure 32: Numbers of anticipated targets vs. binding targets defined in the FYPs
Furthermore, how contemporary political philosophy is narrated in national policy plans was
also examined. Figure 33, Figure 34, and Figure 35 showcase the distribution frequency of
contemporary political philosophy in the five national FYPs, national climate change and
sustainable development plans, and national urban spatial planning and development plans,
respectively. These three figures indicate a similar tendency of shifting from the political
philosophy of Scientific Development to Ecological Civilisation. A slightly different pattern
is found in Figure 36, which demonstrates the distribution frequency of contemporary political
philosophy in national institutional reform plans: the term Ecological Civilisation gets less
mentioned – probably a sign that the institutional reform initiated by the central
government around 2003-2005 is moving into a more problem-specific stage requiring
greater technical focus. In comparison, when Ecological Civilisation was at the initial
conceptualisation phase in 2003-2005, the term was mentioned much more frequently in the
national institutional reform plans.
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Figure 33: Codes* on contemporary political philosophy and their distribution frequency in the FYPs
Figure 34: Codes* on contemporary political philosophy and their distribution frequency in National
Climate Change and Sustainable Development Plans
Urban Spatial Planning and Development Plans
Institutional Reform Plans
* Each coloured square at the nodes represents a certain number of coded segments. The
larger the square, the more segments were assigned with the respective codes.
6.1.3 Policy tendencies at the local level
This section inspects the policy characteristics and tendency at the local level through two
analyses: 1) changes in the numbers and focus of local development targets in the local FYPs,
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and 2) the distribution frequency of contemporary political philosophy in local plans. The aims
of these two analyses are to further understand the institutional dynamics, and to examine the
extent and approaches for UGS upscaling by the local government, in this case, the municipal
government of Guangzhou.
Table 23 reflects several changes from the 12th FYP of Guangzhou to the 13th FYP, including
increase in the number of targets on Environmental Liveability, Public Service and Social
Wellbeing, and Infrastructural Upgrade, and decrease in the number of targets on
Economic Structure and Growth. Also, as one of the targets in Environmental Liveability,
“UGS per capita” changed from an anticipated target to a legally binding one from the
12th to the most recent 13th local FYPs.
Environmental Liveability* Public Service Economic

Type of Technology Infrastructural
& Social Structure &
targets UGS per capita & Innovation Upgrade
Wellbeing Growth
12th FYP 15 m2 →16.5 m2

7 11 6 3 5
Guangzhou Anticipated
13th FYP 16.5 m2 →18 m2

10 13 4 3 6
Guangzhou Binding
Table 23: Numbers of targets in the 12th and 13th FYPs of Guangzhou
Figure 37 shows the distribution frequency of contemporary political philosophy in local

climate change and sustainable development plans and Figure 38 shows the distribution
frequency of contemporary political philosophy in local urban spatial planning and
development plans. Contradictory to national level policy plans, both two figures show that
political philosophy is rarely narrated in local policy plans. Except in the 2017 Special Plan
on Park Construction and Protection, in which tens statements were made about Ecological
Civilisation. Whether this number is significant requires further examination.
Figure 37: Codes* on contemporary political philosophy and their distribution frequency in Local
Climate Change and Sustainable Development Plans
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Figure 38: Codes* on contemporary political philosophy and their distribution frequency in Local
Urban Spatial Planning and Development Plans
Each coloured square at the nodes represents a certain number of coded segments. The larger
the square, the more segments were assigned with the respective codes
6.1.4 Summary
The analyses in Section 6.1 shows a steady increase in prioritising sustainable development,
low carbon development and actions to address climate change impacts at the national level.
The increase in the legally binding targets of Resource and Environment and the decrease in
Economic Growth targets indicates a stronger political will of the Chinese central government
to government the environment more effectively and to shift out of the economic growth focus.
This shows that the Chinese central government has been aware of the need to address climate
change impacts and environmental degradation. There is a tendency of shifting contemporary
political philosophy in the narratives of national policies and plans from the political
philosophy of Scientific Development to Ecological Civilisation, and a recent decline in the
frequency of the latter, probably a sign that the institutional reform initiated by the central
government around 2003-2005 is moving into a more problem-specific stage requiring greater
technical focus.
While national-level policy documents primarily define formal institutional change at the
macro and conceptual level, the local level policy documents mostly describe known costs and
benefits in social, environmental, and economic dimensions at the operational level. Besides,
the number of technical guidelines has increased from the 1st to the 3rd case, indicating that
the state and local governments are paying greater attention to the technicality and legality of
UGS planning and governance, the increase of which probably has reduced the overall
transaction costs to implement these projects. These policy tendencies also indicate that the
national and local governments are paying greater attention to the importance of UGS in urban
development. However, contradictory to the national policy plans, political philosophy in local
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policy plans is rarely narrated. Furthermore, analysis of the local FYPs of Guangzhou shows
an increase in the number of targets on Environmental Liveability, Public Service and Social
Wellbeing, Infrastructural Upgrade, and a decrease in the number of targets on Economic
Structure and Growth. These findings indicate that local governments focus more on getting
the work done and concern less about careful political alignment on paper.
6.2 Relationships and Power Dynamics between Actors

Following the IAD framework (see 3.5 Analysing Common-Pool Resource Governance
through the IAD Framework) but with a small twist, in this research, communities 38 in the three
UGS governance cases are treated are equal to the ④actors or participants involved in the
three case studies. They include three groups – local governments, communities or local
residents (including urban migrants), and landowners, each with its particular attributes. Thus,
this section analyses the relationships and nuances of power dynamics between actors in each
case study based on the information of revealed in the policy documents and by the interview
informants (also revealed in Section 5.3 Three Urban Green Spaces Governance Cases in
Guangzhou). The aims are to further understand the institutional dynamics, facilitators, and
underlying barriers, to examine the approaches for UGS upscaling by the local municipal and
district government, and to analyse any potential indirect, non-monetary costs and benefits in
between actors that influenced the UGS implementation outcome in the three case studies.
Figure 39 shows seven major actors in the three UGS governance case studies in Guangzhou.
The central government is not presented in Figure 39 as it does not participate directly in the
three UGS governance cases. Guangzhou municipal government is the highest-level
administrative body at the city level, which hosts the three district governments involved in the
case studies – Panyu district government, Haizhu district government, and Tianhe district
government respectively. Small businesses include small restaurants, rentals, mechanic
services and small factories. These small businesses in the case studies also contain a degree
of land-use informality in the way these businesses were established. Urban migrants are those
38
The researcher recognises the different connotations that the concept of community has in different disciplines.
For example, many sociological or anthropological studies emphysise the diversity of individuals within a
community and often go into great depth portraiting those differences.
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who came from rural areas outside of Guangzhou and whose household registration, or Hukou
(in Chinese: 户口; hù kǒu) are rural. Household registrations primarily tied to places of birth,
and rural household registration holders can only access the services and welfare of the rural
areas. This means that the urban migrants in Guangzhou do not have the same rights as their
peers with urban household registration in Guangzhou, in terms of access to urban public
services and participation in public affairs. Farmland owners in this research refer to those who
collectively own the farmlands and neighbouring village residential land within the urban
territory of Guangzhou. Finally, the ordinary residents of Guangzhou possess a general citizen
right to monitor and report misdemeanours of government officials, even though they are not
directly involved or influenced by the three UGS planning and implantation cases.
Figure 39: Main actors in the three UGS case study in Guangzhou
There are four main actors in Case 1 - the construction of the Panyu Ecological Corridor
network (see Figure 40): Guangzhou Municipal Government, Panyu District Government,
small (and informal) businesses, and urban migrants. Guangzhou Municipal Government and
Panyu District Government are superior and subordinate governments, and they have a
relationship of collision, cooperation, and collaboration in social, economic, and
environmental protection sectors. This is also the potential costs between superior and
subordinate governments in general. The small (and informal) businesses contribute economic
benefits and local GDP targets to Panyu District Government. Panyu District Government
has the power to allow the small (and informal) businesses to continue to operate or to
exclude them. Migrant workers are “grey” human resources or potential grey economic
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benefits for Panyu District Government, or any local urban governments, as they do not have
to pay for the social welfare of these migrants even though they are the de-facto residents. The
relationship between urban migrant and small informal businesses is a mutually
beneficial symbiotic relationship as producers and consumers.
Figure 40: Actor relationships in Case 1 Panyu Eco-Corridor Network Construction
There are six main actors in Case 2 - the conversion of the Haizhu Wetland Park from the
Wanmu Orchard (see Figure 41): the central government, Guangzhou Municipal Government,
Haizhu District Government, small (informal) businesses, urban migrants, and farmland
owners who have collective property rights to the farmland. The central government,
Guangzhou municipal government and Panyu district government are superior and
subordinate governments and in a relationship of collision, cooperation, and
collaboration in social, economic, and environmental protection sectors. This is also the
potential transaction costs between superior and subordinate governments in general. The
small (and informal) businesses contribute economic benefits and local GDP targets to
Haizhu District Government, who, on the contrary, has the power to allow the small (and
informal) businesses to continue to operate or to exclude them. As the small informal
businesses expand, they increasingly erode the farmland in the orchard. Under this
circumstance, the transaction costs between Haizhu district government and the small informal
business community are gradually increasing. For Haizhu District Government, migrant
workers are also “grey” human resources or grey economic benefits, as the government do
not have to pay for the social welfare of these migrants, even though they are also the de-facto
residents. Urban migrant and small informal businesses have a mutually beneficial
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symbiotic relationship as producers and consumers. Urban migrants and farmland

owners also have a relationship as producers and consumers, as farmland owners
"produce" affordable, semi-formal housing for urban migrants to rent. But it is not
necessarily a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. The premise for the symbiosis of the
two is that the farmland owners have long-term property rights to the farmland, which became
uncertain after the Guangzhou Municipal Government decided to acquire the farmland and
transform it into a wetland park.
Figure 41: Actor relationships in Case 2 Haizhu Wetland Park Construction
There are only three main actors in Case 3 - the construction of the Tianhe Sponge City
demonstration site (see Figure 42): the central government, Guangzhou Municipal Government,
and Tianhe District Government. As superior and subordinate governments, they have a
relationship of collision, cooperation, and collaboration in social, economic, and
environmental protection sectors. This is also the potential transaction costs between
superior and subordinate governments in general.
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Figure 42: Actor relationships in Case 3 Tianhe Sponge City demo-site Construction
6.2.1 Summary
As superior and subordinate governments, the Guangzhou Municipal Government and its
cohort district governments have a relationship of collision, cooperation, and collaboration in
social, economic, and environmental protection sectors. This is also the potential costs between
superior and subordinate governments in general. The small (and informal) businesses provide
economic benefits for the district governments and contribute to the local GDP targets. The
district governments have the power to allow them to continue to operate or to exclude them.
For local governments, urban migrant workers are “grey” human resources or potential grey
economic benefits, as the local government do not have to pay for the public social welfare of
these migrants. Nevertheless, the urban migrants are also the de-facto residents. The
relationship between urban migrants and small informal businesses is a mutually beneficial
symbiotic relationship as producers and consumers. UGS is a common-pool resource (as
framed in Section 3.4.2) for all these actors – as none of them could be excluded from using it
but conserving more urban land for UGS could hinder the interests, overlapping rights, and
responsibilities of all these actors. All these actors are holders of distinctive property rights and
the pragmatic ‘economic man’ who seek to maximise their environmental, social, or economic
benefits. Urban migrants as the holder of rural Hukou (household registration) do not possess
the formal right to participate in urban governance, but ethically speaking, they as the de-facto
residents of the city have an informal right for the same social welfare as others.
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6.3 Interactions between Actors

Based on the relationships and power dynamics between actors analysed in the above section,
the actual interactions between actors in each case study are analysed in this section. Figure 43
showcases the interactions between all the actors in the three UGS case studies in Guangzhou,
a result of co-occurring the frequencies of the coded segments for actors and interactions in all
the in-depth interviews about the three UGS cases in MaxQDA.
Figure 43: Interactions between actors in the three UGS case studies
Note: The directions of arrows represent interactions from A to B. For example, ordinary citizens
participate partially through supervising the municipal and district governments. The size of the
arrows are defined by the co-occurance frequencies of the coded segments in the chosen in-depth
interview transcripts in MaxQDA. The stronger the arrow, the stronger the interaction between two
particular codes/actors.
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For state actors, the analysis shows that Guangzhou Municipal Government is the most
active actor whose primary role is to coordinate with other actors, mainly district
governments. This main coordinating function of municipal governments are also emphasised
by government advisors. As revealed in the in-depth interview by Zhao, a senior urban planning
researcher and government advisor:“The common practice of the central government is to give
a general task and some general and guiding indicators, for example, building a low-carbon
city. How does the local government implement it? Every city needs to make its plans according
to local conditions and development needs. Some cities will focus on the development of green
buildings. Some cities may have a better climate, and they would focus on developing more
urban green spaces. In contrast, others may focus on optimising the industrial structure,
penalising enterprises with high pollution and low efficiency, or ordering them to conduct
improvements, or ordering them to close. In this process, the city government plays a highly
coordinated and presiding role and work with the lower-level governments to achieve the
tasks or goals given by the central government.”
Second, within the coordination process, the municipal government often takes a
democratic, creative, and pragmatic approach to build proposals. As explained by Xiao, a
senior environmental scientist and government advisor:“For example, for constructing Low-
Carbon cities, the mayor would discuss plans with city government officials and experts
before making the final collective decision together with the Urban and Rural Planning
Management Committee. If the mayor alone says that this plan is good, it is not possible (to
pass). For example, the mayor said that he wanted to focus on building more urban green
spaces, a department chief on land resources or a land economy expert would likely say that
the cost of land resources for planting trees is relatively high and would ask the land economy
experts to do some calculations. Planting trees may result in the loss of some more direct and
more efficient economic benefits, such as building real estate. In such circumstance, the
department chief of urban and rural construction may say that they happen to have a
residential real estate development project, which could contribute to building Low-Carbon
cities by building apartments that fit green building standards.”
Furthermore, Figure 43 also shows that the Guangzhou Municipal Government receives a
small amount of interaction from fellow citizens and farmland owners in the Haizhu
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Wetland Park case in the form of partial negotiation and partial supervision. For Case 1,
the Panyu District Government has primarily interacted passively by partially agreeing and
cooperating with the Municipal Government and partially coordinating the implementation of
the Panyu Eco-Corridor Network construction plan. For Case 2, the Haizhu District
Government has played a similar role as the Panyu District Government, except that the
interactions with the Municipal Government have been more intense. And for case 3, the
Tianhe District Government coordinated quite closely with the Guangzhou Municipal
Government to implement the Sponge City Initiative.
However, the conflictual internal coordination dynamics within the municipal

governments, particularly in case 3, is not evident in Figure 43. This conflict is described by
He, a senior urban planner who contributed substantially to the Guangzhou Sponge City
Construction Plan: “The Sponge City project has received strong support from the Guangzhou
Municipal Government, and now they are establishing a demonstration site in Tianhe District.
However, at the same time, the urban planning and construction departments are also
experiencing resistance from the bureau of water resources. As the construction of Sponge City
necessitates ecological and natural methods for flood retention and wastewater treatment,
there will be fewer budgets in the future for the bureau of water resources and negatively
impact its downstream stakeholders. Therefore, a conflict of interest has arisen between
different departments within the municipal government, and this conflict can be understood
as the coordination or negotiation cost within the municipal government.”
For non-state actors, first of all, their identities overlap with each other and, in some cases,
have symbiotic relationships (see Figure 40 and Figure 41). Ordinary citizens interact with
municipal and district actors through partial supervision, see an interview excerpt from
Yuan, a senior urban planner, scholar, and government advisor: “Ordinary citizens have the
legal rights to be informed and make decisions about the environment. The government
generally has a process for publicising information on construction projects to obtain public
feedback on environmental impacts. In addition, the public can participate in the improvement
of a particular project through supervision, and reporting, if they find certain decisions or
actions of a government department or an official suspicious or improper.”
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Second, the major actor in Case 2 the transformation of the Wanmu Orchard into the Haizhu
Wetland Park – the farmland owners, have had active interactions with the municipal and
district governments by partially negotiating, some of them fully agree with the proposal,
and many others cooperated after being informed, without manifesting agreement or
disagreement. See the two interview excerpts from Cai, a government official from the Haizhu
Wetland Park Management Office: “In 2011, the Guangzhou Municipal Government submitted
to the Ministry of Land Resources the proposal to acquire the Wanmu Orchard farmland
without changing the land function. The Haizhu District Government then established a land
acquisition work unit with an advocacy team and land acquisition and demolition team. The
advocacy team informed the farmland owners with materials, including posters and videos
of the farmland acquisition plan, through meetings with question-and-answer sessions with
representatives”. “The representatives of farmland owners, whose role is to express opinions
and make decisions for the collective benefits of the farmland owners, have a significant
amount of power and long-rooted vested interests in the local social and economic network.
The institutional arrangements to trade the farmland ownership for building the Haizhu
Wetland Park are against their existing vested interests. Therefore, some farmland owner
representatives were not enthusiastic about the proposal. They further negotiated with the
municipal government on the financial compensation of farmland property right transfer.”
Third, urban migrants are the most silent actor of all, with little interactions registered
both from them and to them. See an interview excerpt from Huang, a retired government
official of the Haizhu District Government:“The institutional arrangements for the Wanmu
Orchard farmland acquisition ignored the impact on some actual residents of urban migrants
in surrounding urban villages, intentionally or unintentionally. Transforming the orchard into
the Haizhu Wetland Park is an improvement in the quality of the ecological environment in the
area. It is clearly stipulated that 10% of the reserved land would be used for commercial
development (hotels, shops, etc.) for the farmland owners with Guangzhou urban Hukou. These
two interventions jointly increased the semi-informal housing prices in the urban villages. The
leasing price also indirectly makes these urban villages more crowded, and the quality of life
for those urban migrants who live there further declined. In this process, the migrant workers
were indirectly negatively affected by the institutional arrangements for the Haizhu Wetland
Park, and they were not officially notified, let alone new institutional arrangements to
compensate for the negative impacts.”
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Finally, if the thickest arrows in Figure 43 represent a more ideal level of interaction, then, the
thickest arrow can also be interpreted as where two particular actors can interact with least cost.
Then, some further assumptions may be made about the thinner arrows and the greater costs
between those actors. This will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter VII.
6.3.1 Summary
In the three UGS planning and governance case studies, the Guangzhou Municipal Government
is the most active actor whose primary role is to coordinate with other actors, mainly district
governments. Within the coordination process, the municipal government often takes a
democratic, creative, and pragmatic approach to build proposals together with each department
and urban planning experts. In this process, the primary costs taken into consideration by the
municipal government are budget, technical expertise, time to reach a political consensus
between departments and time to implement these UGS plans. The technical expertise includes
expertise in ecological planning and expertise in the arrangements of rights among actors to
access, manage, withdraw, and exclude. Citizens interact with the Guangzhou Municipal
Government often in the form of information solicitation and supervision. Citizens interact
with the Guangzhou Municipal Government often in the form of information solicitation and
supervision. In this process, the primary costs bared by citizens include the time of involvement
and the difficulty in accessing information about these projects. Farmland owners can, and
some have interacted with the municipal and district governments through negotiation and
supervision. In this process, the primary costs bared by the farmland owners are risks of losing
the rights to withdraw and manage the orchards, losing local agricultural tradition for the next
generations, and not getting what they considered as decent compensation from the local
governments. In general, the identities of the non-state actors overlap with each other and, in
some cases, have symbiotic relationships. There are also costs involved to maintain these
symbiotic relationships - as a group of non-state actors, their transaction costs facing the
governmental actors are based on their weigh-in on individual interests vs. collective interests
in these UGS planning and governance projects.
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6.4 Outcome in Urban Green Space Implementation and Institutional Change

This section analyses ⑦outcomes in the three UGS governance case studies, including the
goals and deliverables of UGS planning/implementation, and resultant formal and informal
institutional change.
6.4.1 Urban green space goals and deliverables from national and local plans and policies
This section presents five major analyses related to the outcome of UGS planning and
governance in Chinese cities, in general and in the three case studies, during the study period.
The analysis has the aim to examine to which extent local governments have been able to
advance and upscale UGS and with what approaches. These analyses made around 1) the UGS
actions or deliverables from the national- and local-level UGS-related climate plans or spatial
planning policies, 2) the reflections on UGS implementation with evidence from the in-depth
interviews, 3) the formal institutional changes which reveal evolving government priorities and
local-level institutional changes as response to central-level institutional changes, 4) the
reflections on institutional change with evidence from the in-depth interviews, and lastly 5) the
types of informal institutional changes incurred.
Figure 44 shows a series of UGS interventions considered in official plans for urban climate
change adaptation and biodiversity conservation. These interventions include urban surface
coverage, urban green vegetation as a carbon sink, protection of wild plants and species genetic
pool, roof gardening, rain gardens, biological water retentions, and more. It also shows that the
linkage between UGS and urban climate change mitigation and adaptation in China has
constantly been present in the policy documents at the national level between 2007 to 2019.
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Figure 44: UGS goals and deliverables from the national UGS-related climate plans or spatial
planning policies during the case study period
Then, information on UGS intervention in the local UGS-related climate change and urban
planning plans and policies during the case study period is extracted and presented in Figure
45. It shows ambitious goals of the municipal government of Guangzhou in increasing the
size of UGS per capita and the rate of total urban surface coverage, as well as strict land-
use control and ecological protection. Furthermore, it shows that the municipal government
laid out concrete measures to build Sponge City for alleviating urban pollution and
inundation, including adding vertical greens, recessive green spaces, wetlands, and
rainwater gardens, and further emphasised institutional support, including policies,
regulations, specifications, and evaluation standards to help it succeed. Notably, even
when these UGS action items or goals do address the impacts of climate change, such as urban
inundation, these local-level plans did not link them directly to the word “climate change”.
Figure 45 also showcases a linkage between UGS interventions and their role as a public
service. The policy document analysis above shows that the municipal government of
Guangzhou responded positively to the UGS goals and requirements put forward by the
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central government. Historical data on the actual UGS implementation at the national and
local levels also suggested a positive correlation.
Figure 45: UGS actions or deliverables from the local UGS-related climate plans or spatial planning
policies during the case study period
Figure 46 shows a similar increasing trend in both the percentage of UGS size vs. all urban
land and the size of UGS per capita, for Guangzhou and national average respectively.
Particularly between 2005-2018, Guangzhou had an above-national-average increase in
both UGS size per all urban land and per capita.
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Figure 46: Linear increase trend in urban green space development, Guangzhou vs. National in
selected years
Data source: national and local government reports
6.4.2 Reflections on urban green space implementation - insights from in-depth interviews
This section presents selected excerpts from the in-depth interviews with 50 professionals of
urban planning, urban governance, environmental science, land and political economics, and
public administration. These excerpts cover general knowledge as well as specific experiences
on UGS policies and intervention from these professionals.
Xiao, a senior environmental scientist argues that China´s UGS planning practice has
become more ecology-oriented compared to the conventional approach and describes the
stark land-use tension in the recent rapid urban expansion history in Guangzhou: “In
China, the traditional UGS planning practice is to plan UGS as a supporting facility, that is,
to provide public services. Similar to schools and medical institutions, the amount and
distribution of UGS planned are based on the calculation of the scale and density of the
residential population. UGS planning in China has not been deliberately oriented toward
economic services due to the technical difficulty to quantify its direct economic benefits. But
UGS may improve the quality of a residential community, thereby increasing property value.
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Therefore, most of the existing UGS is planned as a kind of public service and supporting
facilities. But now, with the popularisation of concepts such as environmental protection and
Ecological Civilisation, UGS planning is slowly taking into consideration the ecosystem
services, that is, adopting the ideas and concepts similar to those proposed by Ian McHarg and
protecting land properties with exceptional ecological functions”
Rao, a urban planning and architecture scholar, points out that even though national UGS
policy orientation has gradually opted towards more sophisticated requirements and
indicators, most current local UGS evaluation still focuses on incomprehensive indicators
such as “UGS size per capita”: “The current urban planning system has increased the
requirements for green space planning greatly. However, most of the current evaluation of
green space quality still only focuses on the green space coverage area or green space per
capita. The ecological concepts and indicators of species and biodiversity are still relatively
rare.”
Yue, a researcher in land economics and urbanisation reveals that private actors also
participate in creating more UGS but often through commercial means which often
create gentrification: “Since the direct economic benefits of UGS are difficult to estimate, for
economic efficiency considerations, the government usually packs/bundles UGS into a
commercial complex, such as a commercial housing complex, in order to increase the amount
of UGS in the city.”
Yu, a senior urban landscape architect, scholar and practitioner, criticises the dubious city
beautification movement and the negative impact of the hardening of natural rivers, and
considers the Sponge City demonstration site in Guangzhou as a novel and nature-based
design more effective in treating urban pollution and climate change impacts: “It is sad to
see that, in the process of rapid urban expansion, the canalisation and hardening of natural
rivers and the "beautification" movement are continuing to increase in large and small cities
in China. We totally can be wiser in the way we utilise our rivers and natural landscape. The
Tianhe Daguan Wetland Park, as a pilot project of Guangzhou's Sponge City construction, for
example, demonstrates the possibility of a novel design for urban greening and landscaping.
In this case, we used the natural resources at the original site and the least design to create a
genuinely economical urban green space, provide contemporary urban residents with the most
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and best ecological services, slow down urban waterlogging, and treat water pollution
ecologically. It integrates the needs of residents, management of environmental pollution and
climate change impacts, and preserving native plant species.”
Lv, a senior government official of the urban planning system of Guangzhou, reaffirms not
only the overall improvement in the city’s urban environmental quality, but also the
potential for improvement in UGS governance: “The environmental quality of Guangzhou
needs to be improved. The total amount of urban green spaces has increased, but so is the
trend of ecological landscape fragmentation, While the proportion of urban construction land
has decreased. Although Guangzhou is in the subtropical zone with abundant rainfall, the city
has faced a lack of usable, quality water sources due to the severe pollution of rivers.”
Huang, a retired senior government official in the Haizhu District Government approves the
positive change in the ecological condition of the Haizhu Wetland Park and the overall
environmental quality, admitting a few unintended externalities including the
circumstance of the urban migrants: “Farmland owners have lost the right to manage the
orchard, running the possibility of losing their agricultural traditions and knowledge not being
able to be passed on to the next generation. And because farmland owners could no longer
develop their farmland into informal housing for urban migrants, many have made informal
additions to their existing homesteads, which surpasses the legal height limit for these
homesteads. As a result, the urban villages surrounding the Haizhu Wetland Park have become
more crowded, and the living environment of urban migrants has further deteriorated.”
6.4.3 Formal institutional changes, evolving priorities, and central-local correlation
This section presents analyses on the formal and informal institutional changes accompanying
the UGS interventions revealed in section 6.4.1 and 6.4.2. The aim is to further understand the
changes in the institutional dynamics between actors and between the central and local levels,
as well as to examine to what extent local level governments responded to central-level
government objectives.
Figure 47 shows the formal institutional changes outlined in the 11th, 12th, and 13th national
social and economic development Five-Year Plans (FYPs) respectively, and the occurrence of
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the three UGS planning cases along the same timeline. Formal institutional change refers to
the written modifications in formal policies, plans, laws, and regulations by government
authorities. The most notable trend is the increase in the requirements for formal
institutional changes in environmental protection and climate change mitigation and
adaptation (text in green). Besides, there was only one formal institutional change requirement
related to the economic system reform (text in red), and it was in the 11th FYP (2006-2010).
Furthermore, an equal amount of formal institutional change requirements is observed for
structural or functional government internal reform (text in blue) and environmental
protection and climate change mitigation and adaptation (text in green). A slight increase
in the requirements of institutional reform for urban development and urban-rural integration
(text in purple) is perceived. During the 11th and the 12th FYP (2006-2015), formal reforms
to increase the roles of multiple actors in governance (text in brown) were also outlined. To
sum up, Figure 47 shows evolving priorities for formal institutional change at the national level,
including decreasing focus on economic system reform, increasing focus on structural or
functional government internal reform, and particularly evident increasing focus on
environmental protection and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Figure 47: Formal institutional changes introduced in the national FYPs
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Text in red: formal institutional changes related to the economic system

Text in brown: formal institutional changes related to governance and roles of multiple actors
Text in blue: formal institutional changes related to government internal reform, structural or
functional
Text in green: formal institutional changes related to environmental protection and climate change
mitigation and adaptation
Text in purple: reform for urban development and urban-rural integration
An examination through the national-level climate plans and spatial planning policies finds
four major areas of formal institutional change: 1) environmental regulations, 2)
government reform, 3) economic system reform, and 4) the role of societal actors and
governance (see Figure 48). It is also notable that more institutional changes have been
planned during the transition years between the national FYPs or the macro socio-economic
planning cycles, for example, in 2005 (between the 10th and 11th FYPs), and in 2014-2016
(between the 12th and 13th FYPs). Half of the formal institutional changes outlined in these
policy documents focus on government reform, ¼ of them focus on environmental
regulations, less than 10% of them focus on economic system reform or the role of societal
actors and governance.
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Figure 48: Areas and numbers of formal institutional changes presented in national climate plans and
spatial planning policies
Green: environmental regulations. Blue: government reform. Red: economic system reform.
Brown: the role of societal actors and governance
Having examined how formal institutional change has been outlined in official policy
documents at the national and local levels respectively, it is necessary to assess how local level
governments, in this case, the municipal government of Guangzhou, has reacted to the national-
level formal institutional changes led to the correlations between central and local levels. As
shown in Figure 49, local level institutional changes primarily incurred/reacted to national
level institutional change in environmental protection and climate change mitigation and
adaptation (text in green). Less than one third focus on internal government reform. Only a
slim amount focusses on urban development and urban-rural integration, or governance and
roles of multiple societal actors. The call to establish a government performance index and to
implement a pollutant discharge system are the most responded institutional change items from
the local level. In general, institutional changes at the local level have responded more to
the more recent FYPs, for example the 13th FYP (2016-2020), indicating a stronger central-
local coordination.
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Figure 49: Correlation between local and national levels in formal institutional change
Text in red: formal institutional changes related to the economic system

Text in brown: formal institutional changes related to governance and roles of multiple societal actors
Text in blue: formal institutional changes related government internal reform, structural or functional
Test in green: formal institutional changes related to environmental protection and climate change
mitigation and adaptation
Text in purple: reform for urban development and urban-rural integration
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6.4.4 Reflections on formal institutional change - insights from in-depth interviews
Reflections from the interviewees can support one of the aims of this research to identify and
understand intrinsic-value-related factors of potential institutional barriers. The reflections
from the interviewees on formal institutional change mainly focus on four aspects: 1) the
introduction of ecological performance measures, 2) the unification and systematisation of
urban planning, 3) property rights reforms, and 4) government reform with regards to rule of
law, accountability, and participation.
One aspect of formal institutional change is the ecologicalisation evaluating and

promoting government officials’ performance through environmental protection
indicators, natural resource asset audit sheets. Zhao, a senior urban planning researcher and
government advisor, argues that this aspect can strongly motivate government to deliver
environmental goals: “Environmental protection is now the most important indicator to
evaluate the performance of local governments: once any major environmental, ecological,
and environmental pollution problems have occurred, they will not be promoted to higher
positions. This provides local governments with a stronger motivation and passion for
environmental protection and management. They are now making corresponding adjustments
to their local development policies more actively, focusing on environmental protection.
Previously, the environmental protection work was only driven by political pressure, but today
it is driven by a more formal governance system with accountability mechanisms.”
Another aspect is the unification and systematisation of urban planning with reduction in
the types of plans and departments in charge, but with increase in land-use restrictions
and regulations aimed to protect the environment. Zhao, senior urban planning researcher
and government advisor, calls this change the “modernisation of governance capabilities”:
“One of the actions was to establish the Ministry of Natural Resources to manage various
natural resources in a more unified and systematic manner. The biggest benefit of this reform
action was to enable more efficient and economical use of natural resources, which is a major
manifestation of Ecological Civilisation… In the past, the ecological red line was rarely
considered when making an urban plan. Now, full attention to ecological and environmental
protection is required. We as urban planners need to follow the "rules of the three lines" strictly.
These three strictly controlled lines are: ecological space protection line, ecological red line
and basic farmland protection line. Secondly, the three lines in the previous plan belonged to
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three different departments: The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the
Ministry of Land Resources, and the Ministry of Agriculture respectively. Now in any
determined urban plan, we need to integrate all these lines.”
Additionally, institutions around property rights arrangements have become increasing

complex. Zhao, a senior urban planning researcher and government advisor, gave an example
of the collectively owned farmland in rural areas: “For example, collective land in rural areas
could have the same functional attributes as before (the reform of land property rights), but
now it's managed uniformly throughout the country. E.g., a plot of collectively owned farmland
is now defined as a key ecological protection area, for this reason, although farmers continue
to own the farmland collectively, they can no longer develop it for farming or other purposes.
At this time, the local government should compensate the farmers financially for replacing
their source of livelihood with ecological conservation. For farmers, their collective ownership
remains, but their income source has changed from the original development and use model to
the current ecological conservation model.”
Furthermore, a serious of reform on the government system tend to create more political
space for societal actors and strengthen the rules of the law. Li, a senior urban development
expert and government advisor, revealed how to go about modernising the government and
urban governance: “(I think that we would focus on) the reform of the administrative
management system: transform government functions, reduce administrative levels, improve
administrative efficiency, form good government-enterprise and government-society relations,
thereby modernising urban governance. The result of the reform should reflect the
requirements for the integrated development of urban and rural areas, greater autonomy of
the private sector and the society, and the spirit of the rule of law. At the same time, reform the
cadre appointment management system: change the traditional economic development-based
performance model, instead, incorporate livelihood improvement Ecological Civilisation
construction into the cadre evaluation system.”
All these four formal institutional change trends have been advanced through small-scale
trial-and-error experiments and from the central level down to the local level. Yuan, a
senior urban planning researcher, practitioner, government advisor, shares his insights: “Many
existing types of urban plans in China are a result of a series of trials and errors by selected
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local governments. The experiments and experiences are gradually summarized and then
assessed and approved by the central government before they were institutionalised and
promoted nationwide.”
6.4.5 Informal institutional changes
This section presents five major types of informal institutional changes identified in all the
national- and local-level policy documents as well as in-depth interviews. The aim of this
analysis is to further understand the institutional dynamics, approaches, and emerging norms
or intrinsic-value-related factors which influenced UGS governance in China. These five
major types of informal institutional changes are: 1) enhanced urban-rural coordination
in urban planning, 2) enhanced notion of public participation, 3) enhanced ecological
notion in urban planning, 4) increase in government officials’ environmental awareness,
and 5) enhanced citizens role for government supervision (see Figure 50).
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Figure 50: Five types of informal institutional changes identified in policy documents and in-depth
interviews
6.4.6 Summary
Analysis of UGS goals in national policy documents finds a series of UGS interventions
outlined for urban climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation, including urban
surface coverage, urban green vegetation as a carbon sink, protection of wild plants and species
genetic pool, and more. It also shows that the potential of UGS for urban climate change
mitigation and adaptation is believed and has constantly been considered by the Chinese
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national government. Analysis in local policy documents shows ambitious goals and concrete
measures of the Guangzhou municipal government to increase the UGS size per capita and per
total urban surface coverage and enhance land-use control and ecological protection. The
analysis also shows the local government’s intention to enhance institutional support, including
policies, regulations, specifications, and evaluation standards to help it succeed, indicating a
positive sign of systematic thinking. Notably, even when these UGS action items do address
the impacts of climate change, these local-level plans did not link them directly to the term
“climate change”. There are three possible reasons: 1) a perception gap of climate change
between the central and local governments, 2) the technical-scientific challenge to confirm the
direct causal relations between local economic activities and regional climate change impacts,
or to quantify properly the benefits of UGS ecosystem services at local levels, or 3) a strategy
with differentiated focus distributed across levels of government and scales of time, population,
and resources.
Comparing the actual historical development of UGS implementation at the local levels with
that of the national average, it reveals a positive response by the Guangzhou municipal
government to the UGS goals defined by the central government. Traditional UGS planning
practice in China tended to treat UGS merely as a product for public service but has evolved
to become more ecology-oriented in recent years. The UGS policy orientation at the national
level has gradually opted towards more sophisticated requirements and indicators. However,
most current local UGS evaluation still focuses on incomprehensive indicators, such as “UGS
size per capita”. These findings indicate the ongoing learning progress of government officials
and urban planning professionals, with obstacles remain in operationalising those more
sophisticated requirements and indicators. These obstacles require substantial investment in
technical expertise, institutional change, and human resources to tackle.
Guangzhou has suffered a stark land-use tension in recent decades due to high-speed urban
expansion. The overall hardening of natural rivers and land surfaces has caused many negative
impacts on urban environmental health. Besides, many urban greening attempts taken place
along the so-called “city beautification” movement did not resolve the problems. Furthermore,
even though private actors have also been allowed and encouraged to create more UGS via
commercials means, they have often produced externalities such as gentrification.
Interventions like the 2nd case (Haizhu Wetland Park) and the 3rd case (Tianhe Sponge City
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demonstration site) have resulted in positive changes in the overall ecological condition and
strengthened climate resilience, however, shortcomings remain. These reflections show that a
more systemic approach is needed to improve the technical expertise and institutional support
and include more non-state actors, specifically those whose property rights are informal or
poorly established.
Analysis of the formal institutional change outlined in national policy documents finds a
notable increase in the requirements of institutional change environmental protection and
climate change mitigation and adaptation, and a drastic decrease in the requirements of
economic system reform. Structural or functional government internal reform and
environmental protection and climate change actions are equally essential priorities for the
central government. These findings indicate a sharp rise in the central government´s political
determination to tackle environmental and climate challenges. Analysis of the formal
institutional change in local policy documents finds more institutional changes being planned
during the transition years between the national FYP planning cycles. Most of those focus on
government reform and environmental protection and climate change actions, showcasing
positive response to the institutional changes outlined at the national level, and mainly
responded to the more recent FYPs, indicating stronger multi-level coordination.
Reflections from the interviewees on formal institutional change mainly focus on four trends:
1) The ecologicalisation in the evaluation and promotion of government officials’ performance
through environmental protection indicators and natural resource asset audit sheets. 2) The
unification and systematisation of urban planning with reduction in the types of plans and the
numbers of departments in charge, but with increase in land-use restrictions and regulations of
environmental protection. 3) Increasing complexity in property rights arrangements. And 4)
Government reform in critical aspects such as the inclusion of societal actors and the rules of
the law. These four formal institutional change trends have been advanced through small-scale
trial-and-error experiments, first at the local levels and, once proven effective, promoted by the
central government and scaled-up nationwide. These findings show great efforts of the central
and local governments in institutionalising mechanisms of self-check regarding environmental
deeds; in the meantime, the rights, or the legal power to govern the environment and climate
change are more concentrated in fewer departments.
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Furthermore, five major types of informal institutional changes are identified: 1) enhanced
urban-rural coordination in urban planning, 2) enhanced notion of public participation, 3)
enhanced ecological notion in urban planning, 4) increase in government officials’
environmental awareness, and 5) enhanced citizens role for government supervision. These
findings show changing values of governments in urban environmental governance, with 1)
greater attention to improving the government's environmental knowledge and awareness,
which is also useful for reducing the costs of environmental damage or mistakes made by
improper response measures, and 2) mobilisation of non-state actors to supervise the
government, which could help reduce the costs of law enforcement and internal government
supervision.
6.5 Final Evaluation through Multi-Criteria Assessment (MCA)

The above analyses have teased out many subtleties about the ⑥interactions and conflicts
between the ④actors in the three case studies, the ⑦outcome in UGS implementation as well
as formal and informal institutional changes. This section evaluates the ⑥interactions and
⑦outcomes through a comprehensive multi-criteria assessment (MCA), as guided by the IAD
framework (see Section 3.5 Analysing Common-Pool Resource Governance through the IAD
Framework, and Figure 9: The IAD framework applied in this research). The MCA is
conducted/scored by the researcher according to the information provided by
interviewees/informants as well as the analysis done in the above sections. As introduced in
Section 3.5, considering the flexible and context-specific nature of the IAD framework, this
research extends the five basic evaluative criteria that Ostrom (2005) defined into a more
comprehensive set of criteria (see Table 24), based on these three additional references: 1) The
universal principles for effective governance in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA),
2)The Technical Assessment Synopsis Reports of the European Green Capital Award, and 3)
The Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) guideline for ENavi - the Energy Transition Navigation
System developed to evaluate the German national energy transition scheme ‘Energiewende’.
For reasons of selection of these references, see Section 4.3.2.2. The new set of evaluation
criteria enables a more detailed evaluation of the variables, thereby increasing the credibility
of the results of this MCA.
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1ST TIER &

CORRESPONDING SUB-CODES (SUB- CORRESPONDING
STRUCTURAL DIMENSIONS 2ND TIER CRITERIA 1ST CASE 2ND CASE 3RD CASE
THEMES) CATEGORIES
CRITERIA
1. Financing adequacy N/A 7 N/A

Economic 2. Direct cost-benefit ⑦Outcome
N/A 7 N/A UGS Implementation
efficiency
3. Temporal efficiency of
7 7 7
1. Economic planning UGS goals from plans/policies
efficiency Technical ⑦Outcome
4. Temporal efficiency of UGS Implementation
1 7 7
implementation

5. Interlinkages between
Institutional 2 6 5 UGS Implementation ⑦Outcome
institutions
UGS Implementation
6. Cultivation of social Informing/informed ⑦Outcome
2 5 4
cohesion Partially participating ⑥Interactions
7. Inclusion of health and

N/A 5 6 Human health and wellbeing ⑦Outcome
wellbeing benefits
Social
2 6 7
access information
UGS Implementation
2. Equity
9. Inclusion of rights to Informing/informed ⑦Outcome
1 6 6
monitor Partially participating ⑥Interactions
2 5 4
participate
11. Environmental
UGS Implementation
Ecological protection and resource 4 7 7 ⑦Outcome
Climate resilience
conservation
12. Inclusion of economic UGS goals from plans/policies ⑦Outcome

Economic 6 5 5
benefits UGS Implementation
13. Sustainability in land use 3 6 6
14. Environmental quality

2 7 7
(air, noise, waste, water)
15. Ecological resilience

N/A 7 7
(ability to stay resilient) UGS Implementation
Technical/ecolo ⑦Outcome
16. Effectiveness in climate Climate resilience
gical
change mitigation and 4 7 7 Human health and wellbeing
adaptation
3. Adaptability,
17. Significance and
resilience, and 4 7 7
relevance to the SDGs
robustness
18. Technical replicability 2 7 7
19. Economic predictability

and contribution to the 6 6 7
common good ⑦Outcome
Economic UGS goals from plans/policies
20. Green growth and eco‐
5 6 5
innovation
21. Innovativeness in UGS goals from plans/policies

Institutional 7 7 6 ⑦Outcome
governance UGS Implementation
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22. Institutional adaptability Formal changes

5 6 N/A
(changes over time) Informal changes
23. Transferability of
6 6 6
practices
24. Compliance with upper- UGS goals from plans/policies

level governments and 1 7 7 UGS Implementation ⑦Outcome
4. agendas Urban climate governance
Institutional
Accountability 25. Administrative UGS goals from plans/policies
accountability within 2 6 6 UGS Implementation ⑦Outcome
own level Urban climate governance

26. Information transparency 2 6 6 ⑦Outcome
UGS Implementation

5. 27. Legitimacy (conformity UGS Implementation
2 6 7 ⑦Outcome
Conformance to the law) Formal changes
Institutional
to general Informal changes
morality
UGS Implementation
28. Ethical acceptability 4 5 7 ⑦Outcome
Formal changes
Informal changes
1 Very clearly negative 7 Very clearly positive

2 Clearly negative 6 Clearly positive
3 Slightly negative 5 Slightly positive
N/A Not sufficient information to assess 4 Neutral / Insignificant
Table 24: Final Evaluation of UGS planning and governance in Guangzhou through a Multi-Criteria
Assessment (MCA)
As showcased in Table 24, the first case – the Panyu Ecological Corridor construction project
is quite successful in terms of temporal efficiency of planning and inclusion of economic
benefits. It also scores high in economic predictability, innovativeness in governance, and
transferability of practices. The Panyu Ecological Corridor construction project scores low in
social equity, technical/ecological adaptability, resilience, and robustness, accountability, and
conformance to general morality, particularly in information transparency and legitimacy
(conformity to law).
The second case – the Haizhu Wetland Park transformation project is highly successful in
general, particularly in the criteria of economic efficiency in economic, technical, and
institutional dimensions, as well as in the criteria of adaptability, resilience, and robustness in
technical/ecological, economic, and institutional dimensions, and in institutional accountability.
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The Haizhu Wetland Park transformation project scores slightly lower in social equity and
conformance to general morality.
The third case – the Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site construction is deemed successful
in general, particularly in the criteria of adaptability, resilience, and robustness, accountability
in technical/ecological and economic dimensions. This case has also demonstrated high
efficiency in planning and high compliance with upper-level governments and agendas. Overall,
the local government, in this case, the Guangzhou municipal government and the Tianhe
district government, did well in fulfilling administrative accountability within own levels and
have been quite transparent in terms of public information. The project scores high in
legitimacy (conformity to the law) and ethical acceptability. It is comparatively less successful
in the inclusion of public participation and there is no sufficient information yet to determine
the institutional adaptability over time.
The commonalities shared by all these three cases are the evident temporal efficiency in
planning, and innovativeness in governance in each owns terms, despite not all led to
successful UGS implementation outcome. The second and third cases – the Haizhu Wetland
Park and the Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site projects, respectively, share a high level
of technical/ecological adaptability, resilience, and robustness.
From the first to the third cases, an increasing trend is identified in the following criteria: 1)
technical/ecological adaptability, resilience, and robustness, 2) inclusion of health and
wellbeing benefits, and 3) inclusion of rights to access information, 4) sustainability in land-
use, 5) information transparency, 6) legitimacy (conformity to law), and 7) ethical acceptability.
6.5.1 Summary
Results from the MCA show that all three case studies are efficient in terms of planning
and implementation within relatively short periods, despite not all have been successful,
possibly due to the lack of information or understanding of the fundamental challenges of UGS
planning within that particular time and social-economic development context - an information
cost that the actors missed to consider. It also shows high governance innovativeness in all
three cases in each owns terms, despite not all have been successful. In this 1st case, the
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innovativeness in governance is reflected by the fact that the Panyu Ecological Corridor was
promoted as a conceptual plan and the weigh-ins of urban planning experts, which was
considered innovative at that time. In the 2nd case, the Haizhu Wetland Park project was the
first to have a land property right transfer scheme for collective agricultural land conservation
and prevention of urban sprawl. Regarding adaptability, resilience, and robustness, there is an
overall increasing trend from the 1st to the 3rd cases in the technical/ecological dimension
of adaptability, resilience, and robustness. The 2nd case (Haizhu Wetland Park) and the 3rd
case (Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site) score high. There is also an overall increasing
trend on the inclusion of health and wellbeing benefits and the rights to access
information, legitimacy (conformity to the law) and ethical acceptability in all the case
studies. Compared to the 1st case, the Tianhe Sponge City project is backed by technically
more proficient and meticulous plans and greater central government preference. Compared to
the 2nd case, the Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site construction was more straightforward
and did not involve property rights complications nor social justice issues of urban migrants.
The 1st case – the Panyu Ecological Corridor project scores high on economic
predictability and transferability of practices. However, these criteria do not necessarily
guarantee success. The high economic predictability also indicates little intervention incurred,
alias the “business as usual” path dependency. On social equity and conformance to general
morality, the 2nd case - Haizhu Wetland Park transformation project scores slightly
lower. Compared to the 1st case, the difference in the 2nd case began with the
institutionalisation of land property rights changes from collective ownership to state
ownership. Besides, the 2nd case also benefited from a much larger budget, which sorted out
the direct cost-benefit equation better than in the 1st case for both local government and non-
state actors. Furthermore, the 2nd case was facilitated by a greater political preference from the
central level and the emergence of the new national development philosophy Ecological
Civilisation. The comparatively lower score in social equity results from the project´s
inability to improve the living environment of the urban migrants inclusively within the
wetland area due to the lack of institutional support for the urban migrants, which is
probably too costly to combine with this project.
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CHAPTER VII
DISCUSSIONS
Chapter VI analysed the institutions, actors, interactions between actors and outcomes in the
three empirical UGS governance case studies and evaluated the interactions and outcomes of
both the UGS implementation and resultant institutional change in a multi-criteria assessment
(MCA). This chapter summarises and discusses the main findings in combination with the
literature reviewed and the theoretical framework established in Chapters II and III, followed
by considering the policy implications and scientific contributions and implications of this
research.
7.1 Summary and Discussion of Main Findings
7.1.1 Land property rights arrangements determine UGS governance
First, the analysis finds that in Guangzhou, land property rights as well as actors who
have the power to influence land property rights arrangements determine the extent to
which they participate in UGS governance, which also indirectly indicate that UGS
resources in China are still governed primarily in the same way as land resources. Under
this premise, the Guangzhou government plans and governs UGS proactively through first
obtaining land property rights, including ownership and management rights, and legalising
those UGS plans under the guidance of urban planning experts. Through this approach, the
municipal government can gain better control of the overall land use in urban development.
For example, in the 2nd case, the municipal government acquired the collectively owned
farmland and transferred it into a state-owned property while maintaining the agricultural
function of the land. In the 3rd case, the Guangzhou government first created a legally binding
special plan before implementing the Sponge City Initiative based on a specific technical
guideline produced by the central government.
From the CPR theory point of view, well-defined property rights help solve the problem of
over-appropriation and free riding of urban land resources. Clarifying property rights can
enable individuals or collective actors in UGS governance to fully enjoy the goods or products
they own and thereby participate in UGS governance to a greater extent. This also explains
why the participation of urban migrants in the Haizhu Wetland Park project (the 2nd Case) was
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relatively low, while the collective farmland owners could negotiate and bargain with the
municipal and district governments. In this example, the environment of the urban village
where the migrants live has not been improved, which shows that the property rights transfer
of the Haizhu Wetland Park project is not sufficiently inclusive, which externalised the cost of
social equity. However, in this Case, the ecological achievement is relatively successful
because it re-divided the physical boundaries of UGS resources and the participation
boundaries of the farmland owners and migrant workers. The farmland owners were able to
negotiate with municipal governments and participate in decision-making, and for that, the
Haizhu Wetland Park case can also be considered having had a collective choice arrangement
to a certain extent. In addition, practices like the Panyu Ecological Corridor project (the 1st
Case) exemplified a simplistic UGS governance logic that treats UGS resources the same as
the physical land. This perhaps overly simplistic arrangement was due to the low awareness of
the actors on the ecosystem services that UGS provide or the lack of knowledge on the critical
factors that influence the quality of UGS ecosystem services, including connectivity,
biodiversity, and landscape diversity. The foregone benefits of UGS ecosystem services are
essentially an opportunity cost.
Property rights arrangement is an essential formal institutional arrangement in CPR

governance. Conceptualising UGS as CPR tells us that, the property rights bundles for
UGS governance should contain two separate sets - one for the urban land and the other
for the UGS as urban ecological CPRs - each set with more refined definitions on the
rights of access, withdrawal, management, exclusion, and alienation. As land resources in
Chinese cities are usually scarce but not necessarily low exclusivity, land resources can either
be governed as a CPR or a private resource. Although the ecological functions and services of
UGS are also scarce as urban land resources, they are shared by all citizens and are not
exclusive. In this circumstance, properly defined rights of ownership, management, and
withdrawal of UGS resources could bring different outcomes. Based on this reasoning, a policy
suggestion can be made to the Haizhu Wetland Park case: after obtaining the ownership of this
agricultural land, it is entirely possible to allow the original farmers (or even enable the urban
migrants) to continue managing their orchards, preserve the ecological functions as well as the
local Lingnan ecological farming culture. The only property right that the Guangzhou
Municipal Government needs to retain is to supervise the management and strengthen the
standards and requirements in environmental conservation. This will mobilise non-state actors
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to participate in the management of the Haizhu Wetland Park to a greater extent and reduce
maintenance costs.
7.1.2 Guangzhou’s UGS governance mostly in line with characteristics of successful CPR
governance regimes
Secondly, the analysis shows that although China’s UGS is mainly governed as land
resources, its ecological functions, including the potential to cope with climate change,
have gradually been formalised in the institutional arrangements in the past two decades.
Guangzhou's UGS governance is mostly in line with the eight common characteristics of
successful CPR governance regimes. Under the concept and national environmental
governance framework Ecological Civilisation, the focus on environment and climate change,
the number and intensity of legally binding UGS targets in national policy documents increased,
and that implies enhanced consideration of social costs and environmental benefits of UGS,
which shows increasing clarity in the definition of CPR resource boundaries. Besides, the
rigorous internal government reform and stricter environmental regulations and their
enforcement show increasing clarity in the definition of CPR user boundaries, more
arrangements for collective/choice or public participation, and improved monitoring, sanctions,
and conflict resolution mechanisms. From the 1st to the 3rd case, Guangzhou's UGS
governance increasingly considered UGS resources as part of a larger and more complex
social-ecological system and improved multi-level government supervision, reflecting the
characteristic of nested enterprise in successful CPR governance regimes. Although not all
the eight common characteristics of successful CPR governance regimes were identified
in Guangzhou's UGS governance. There was no minimal recognition (by state actors, e.g.,
upper-level governments) of the rights to organise as State actors dominate Guangzhou’s UGS
governance. By default, and need not be recognised by a higher-level government, the
municipal government has both the right and (more as) responsibility to organise UGS
governance together with non-state actors. This demonstrates the decisive role of China's
institutional context in its CPR governance arrangements.
However, maintaining clear physical boundaries might not work the best for resources like
UGS as the way and physical extent to which ecosystem services benefit urban areas are fuzzy.
For this reason, UGS governance might be better governed with a fuzzy boundary which
recognises the complexity of ecological compositions of a UGS. This again indicates the need
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to shift out of the current land-property rights-based approach to UGS governance. The idea
that fuzzy resource boundaries could be more advantageous for promoting the ecosystem
services of UGS for climate adaptation, urban environmental health and wellbeing contradicts
the theory of CPR governance. But how to govern a CPR with fuzzy physical boundaries? This
is a real challenge to be researched and explored for solutions.
Except for the boundary clarity issue, which is now debatable, governing UGS as CPRs in
Chinese cities can be improved in the following areas: proportional equivalence between
benefits and costs for all actors and broader collective-choice arrangements. To achieve
proportional equivalence between benefits and costs for all actors, actors first need to gain a
balanced and better understanding of UGS as an essential part of the urban complex social
ecosystem and all the benefits and costs associated with UGS governance, including the
ecological value UGS and the social value of collective choices made by non-state actors (the
opposite of which are the costs of the ecosystem and social justice). A better understanding of
ecological value is essential to reduce the costs of information acquisition gradually. Collective
choice by non-state actors can help reduce the differences in the interest or willingness of actors
in urban governance, thereby reducing the costs of cooperation.
7.1.3 Guangzhou’s UGS governance attunes with Ecological Civilisation
The third finding is that Guangzhou's UGS governance tends to attune with the national
environmental governance framework Ecological Civilisation through conducting both
the means and ends of institutional change. Guangzhou's UGS governance gradually went
through these formal institutional changes from case 1 to case 3, focusing on changing
the means of UGS institutions:
• The ecologicalisation in evaluating and promoting government officials' performance,
for example, institutionalising mechanisms of self-check regarding environmental
deeds.
• The unification and systematisation of urban planning with reductions in the types of
plans and the numbers of departments in charge, but with an increase in land-use
restrictions.
• Increasing complexity in property rights arrangements.
• Government reform in critical aspects such as the inclusion of societal actors and the
rules of the law.
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All of these are institutional changes of the means. These four formal institutional change
trends have been advanced through small-scale trial-and-error experiments, first at the local
levels and, once proven effective, promoted by the central government and scaled-up
nationwide. From case 1 to case 3, Guangzhou's UGS governance went through several
informal institutional changes which focused on changing the ends of UGS institutions,
including enhanced notions of urban-rural coordination, public participation, ecological
planning, environmental awareness among all actors, and citizens' role for government
supervision.
Regarding value propositions, Case 1 - the Panyu Ecological Corridor explicitly sought
ecological adaptability on a conceptual plan but implicitly and predominantly pursued
economic interests. Case 2 - Haizhu Wetland Park was able to balance between seeking
explicitly ecological values and compensating implicitly with economic development
opportunities. Case 3 - the Tianhe Sponge City demonstration site focused explicitly on
ecological resilience, health benefits and technical robustness. Oddly, even when these explicit
ecological value propositions are evident in all three cases, they rarely directly address the issue
of how these UGS resources might tackle climate change impacts. This is possibly due to:
• a gap in climate change perception between the central and local governments,
• the technical-scientific challenge to confirm the direct causal relations between the
local economic activities and regional climate change impacts, or to quantify the
ecosystem services of UGS adequately, or
• that it is a strategy with differentiated focus distributed across levels of government and
scales of time, population, and resources.
7.1.4 Sustained barriers to institutional change for UGS governance in China

Fourthly, the analysis finds three main institutional barriers/challenges that remained in
Guangzhou’s UGS governance despite substantial progress under Ecological Civilisation:
the lack of legal foundations for regular ecological status assessments, low awareness of
local state actors on climate change impacts and the ecological potential of UGS, and the
lack of long-term commitment for governing UGS based on recognising its ecological
values and potentials. First, Chinese cities have developed a path dependence on land-based
and economy-based urbanisation in the last few decades. A rigorous set of performance
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evaluation systems and governance trends based on economic development was established for
local officials. In this context, the central government’s political determination and recent
ambition in Ecological Civilisation are plausible but not sufficient for UGS governance to
succeed. This is an institutional barrier that impedes multilevel institutional coordination,
which requires solutions that establish the legal foundation for regular and long-term
ecological status assessments so that UGS governance in Chinese cities can become more
nature- and ecosystem-based in the long run. Second, due to the current definition of UGS
as a type of urban development land, UGS in Chinese cities has been chiefly regarded as green
infrastructure to serve urban economic development, which is a rather pragmatic and utilitarian
approach that is no longer very suitable for the high complexity and uncertainty in the urban
social-ecological system today. Under this premise, actors in UGS governance fail to consider
many ecological functions that are not yet entirely quantifiable in scientific research or
monetisable in policy design. Local state actors might not be as proactive in improving
their awareness or collaborating with other departments on addressing climate change
impacts through better UGS governance. This is an institutional rigidity that limits the
horizontal interplay within local governments that requires institutional solutions. The
third aspect relates to the dimension of time. Chinese city government officials are appointed
and transferred hierarchically or from one city to another by the central government with a
certain frequency to prevent corruption from emerging. Under this premise, local officials are
required or are under political pressure to perform during their tenure. Hence, compared to
UGS governance projects that require a long-term commitment and are often less impressive
economically and politically, most local officials prefer to build a visible and highly efficient
infrastructure or economic project, e.g., host a G20 meeting or build a train station. This is
another institutional rigidity that implies conflicting objectives, tensions, and trade-offs
in political dimensions, which requires institutional solutions to foster long-term
commitment to govern UGS genuinely based on recognising its ecological values and
potentials.
7.2 Policy Implications

It is hardly straightforward to resolving these remaining challenges as they are institutional
barriers that require fundamental change within the legal and administrative system of the
country across levels as well as in the intrinsic values of all actors on a large scale. These
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changes require a high learning and communication capacity among all actors in order to reach
a consensus on such institutional changes, build trust among each other, and support their
efforts to achieve them. These institutional changes can be hugely costly in time, financing,
political inconveniences, and even social stability. To design more integrated UGS plans that
would also be more effective in addressing social issues, it requires reforms in the urban
planning system, the inter-departmental coordination mechanism, the household registration
system (Hukou) and most importantly, change the narrow framing and targeting of UGS
planning in policy documents towards more comprehensive framing. To enable more public
participation in planning and governance and not just supervision, it would also require an
institutional change to enlarge the rights of citizens to create legal space for them. It also
requires normative changes in how government officials and citizens perceive their
relationships from the conventional "the governor" and "the governed" relationship to one that
recognises all urban actors' capacity and willingness to contribute to the betterment of the urban
living environment as a commons. To ensure the institutional sustainability of these
interventions so that when one type of UGS intervention is proven effective, there is decent
institutional support to enable replicating in other parts of the city or upscaling in other cities.
Finally, a set of intrinsic values that are more ecologically embedded and common-pool
resource (CPR) oriented among all actors would also be effective and efficient for promoting
more ambitious decisions on UGS planning.
The main findings presented above are expected to have the following implications on the UGS
policies in Chinese cities for climate adaptation, urban health, and well-being.
1. Influence on the current practice of information public exposure, with the tendency to extend
the time and scope of exposure so that citizens could be better informed about the respective
UGS plans and be in a proper position to supervise local governments during the
implementation process, thereby securing citizen's right to know and improving public
acceptance.
2. Influence on the current speed of UGS planning, with the tendency to allow more time in
the planning process. This would enable more internal synergy to raise or increase between
departments. In addition, it would allow more feedback to come from non-state actors,
including the urban migrants, which would make the UGS plans more socially inclusive, alias
more people centred.
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3. Influence on the institutional foundation of UGS planning, with the tendency to create a
more solid institutional foundation to improve the administrative accountability of respective
departments and the rights and responsibilities of other actors.
4. Influence on the science-policy nexus, with the tendency to commission more scientific
studies to enhance the scientific rigour and thereby feasibility and success rate of the UGS
plans for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
5. Influence on the way local governments narrate and understand climate change, with the
tendency to enhance the narratives of climate change locally and make the nexus between UGS
and climate change more pronounced, to enhance citizen's awareness of climate change and
mobilise more local and voluntary climate actions. Finally, the logic that ecosystem services
need to be more adequately quantified and monetised to facilitate more ambitious UGS
planning decisions might need to be contested; instead, a set of intrinsic values that are more
ecologically embedded and common-pool resource (CPR) oriented among all actors would also
be effective and efficient for promoting more ambitious decisions on UGS planning.
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CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSIONS
8.1 Research Overview and Reflection of Main Findings

Facing expeditious urbanisation and climate change impacts, how has China governed urban
green spaces? This thesis has presumed the task to find out. UGS is an entry point where actions
and results matter for every urban citizen for better climate resilience, health, and well-being
regardless of the social, economic, and political contexts in which they live. China bears a huge
responsibility as well as potential due to the scales of its economy, population, and total carbon
footprint and has seen strong political determination to act upon climate and environmental
challenges amidst constant urbanisation and economic development needs. So how did Chinese
cities approach the planning and governance of UGS? What institutional facilitations or
challenges have they received or confronted when planning and managing UGS? How have
local governments managed to upscale UGS towards more effective NbS? What are the good
practices to be shared? Furthermore, why some challenges persisted despite the centralised
government system and strong political determination? This thesis sets out to study three case
studies on UGS planning and governance in Guangzhou, a highly populated, compact,
vulnerable coastal city in Southeast China. The aims were to understand the institutional
dynamics, facilitators, and underlying barriers that could be at play in UGS planning and
governance, examine the extent and approaches for UGS upscaling, analyse the costs and
benefits taken into consideration, and understand the intrinsic-value-related factors of
institutional barriers, which is essential for institutional innovation for promoting more NbS.
Based on insights from literature review of the Chinese and Western theories and practices of
urban planning, and urban governance from the institutional perspective, this thesis builds a
theoretical framework of common-pool resource (CPR) governance developed by American
political scientist Elinor Ostrom to proceed. The theoretical framework establishes UGS as an
essential part of the complex urban social-ecological system that should theoretically be
governed as a common-pool resource (CPR), with formal and informal institutional
arrangements designating property rights and responsibilities to both state and non-state actors
appropriate to respective levels and scales. The theoretical framework also expounds on how
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institutions evolve or change along with the changing transaction costs or the changing
perceptions of them between actors and action situations. The breakdown of transactional cost-
benefit balances constitutes a major driver of institutional change, formal or informal, leading
to two types of institutional change: the means and ends. The thesis selects three empirical
cases and uses the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to structure a case
study-based qualitative content analysis and an MCA, with data collected from semi-structured
in-depth interviews and a selection of national and local UGS-related policies and plans.
The qualitative content analysis and an MCA yielded the following findings. First, land
property rights and actors who have the power to influence land property rights arrangements
determine the extent to which they participate in UGS governance, which also indirectly
indicate that UGS resources in China are still governed primarily in the same way as land
resources. Property rights arrangement is an essential formal institutional arrangement in CPR
governance. Conceptualising UGS as CPR tells us that the property rights bundles for UGS
governance should contain two separate sets - one for the urban land and the other for the UGS
as urban ecological CPRs - each set with more refined definitions on the rights of access,
withdrawal, management, exclusion, and alienation. In addition, although China's UGS is
mainly governed still as land resources, its ecological functions, including the potential to cope
with climate change, have gradually been developed into formal institutional arrangements in
the past two decades. Guangzhou's UGS governance is mostly in line with the eight common
characteristics of successful CPR governance regimes. Governing UGS as CPRs in Chinese
cities can be improved by striking a better equivalence between benefits and costs for all actors
and broaden the extent of collective-choice arrangements.
The above two findings indicate that UGS as an essential part of the complex urban
social/ecological system cannot be simply governed as land resources. To attach importance to
the ecosystem services and ecological values of UGS, it is necessary to define them with an
exclusive and clear set of property rights. In addition, the phenomenon of over-exploitation
and free-riding of CPRs tells us that recognising the irrational and rent-seeking nature of human
beings is the prerequisite for successful human cooperation and sustainable CPR governance.
Furthermore, Guangzhou's UGS governance tends to attune with the national environmental
governance framework Ecological Civilisation through conducting both the means and ends of
215
institutional change. Last but not least, despite substantial progress under Ecological
Civilisation, three main institutional barriers/challenges remained in Guangzhou's UGS
governance: the lack of legal foundations for regular ecological status assessments, low
awareness of local state actors on climate change impacts and the ecological potential of UGS,
and the lack of long-term commitment for governing UGS based on recognising its ecological
values and potentials. The lack of legal foundations for regular ecological status assessments
is an institutional barrier that impedes multilevel institutional coordination, which requires
solutions that establish the legal foundation for regular and long-term ecological status
assessments so that UGS governance in Chinese cities can become more nature- and
ecosystem-based in the long run. Local state actors might not be as proactive in improving their
awareness or collaborating with other departments on addressing climate change impacts
through better UGS governance. The low awareness of local state actors on climate change
impacts and the ecological potential of UGS is an institutional rigidity that limits the horizontal
interplay within local governments that requires institutional solutions. The lack of long-term
commitment for governing UGS based on recognising its ecological values and potentials is
another institutional rigidity that implies conflicting objectives, tensions, and trade-offs in
political dimensions, which requires institutional solutions to foster long-term commitment to
govern UGS, recognising its ecological values and potentials.
These two findings indicate that some institutions can achieve specific goals efficiently, but
one cannot tell yet whether they can be sustained in the long run. The CPR theory tells us that
institutional arrangements for long-term sustainable resource governance should provide
individual and collective actors with the time and opportunity to participate in the process
thoroughly and achieve the end goals/benefits. In UGS governance, a set of long-term,
sustainable institutional arrangements should not only allow individual or group actors to
participate in the governance process but also fulfil their needs for good health, well-being, and
a resilient environment facing climate change impacts.
216
8.2 Reflecting on the Aims, Objectives, and Methodology

This research has fulfilled the aims set forth at the beginning, some better than others. The
theoretical framing and the empirical inquiry succeeded in capturing the institutional dynamics,
facilitators, and underlying barriers at play in Guangzhou´s UGS governance. The empirical
analysis also successfully examined the extent and approaches for upscaling UGS and
improving UGS governance in Guangzhou. Costs and benefits taken into consideration by
state- and non-state actors were not understood by the researcher as clearly as desired, partially
since some costs and benefits related to ecosystem services and related to social equity could
not be decently quantified or compared. Finally, some intrinsic-value-related factors of
institutional barriers were identified, but more research is needed to understand how these
intrinsic-value-related factors influence Guangzhou´s UGS governance, in which the
researcher did not intend to invest. This research also has realised its objectives of fulfilling
the research gap of institutional insights of UGS governance within the Chinese context,
sharing successful practices, providing new insights from the institutional analysis based on
the common-pool resource (CPR) theory for local state actors, and verifying the potential of
system reform for achieving Ecological Civilisation through identifying existing institutional
barriers and proposing solutions.
Regarding the methodology, this research has represented an earnest attempt to tackle the
methodological challenges in measuring and evaluating institutional arrangements and
institutional change by establishing comprehensive criteria, combining in-depth interviews
with official policies and plans, and conducting an in-depth qualitative content analysis and a
comprehensive MCA. It is also an attempt to approach the subject of sustainable development
and climate change policies without getting too much subjected to normative or ideological
influences. The researcher has attempted to create case-study representativeness as high as
possible by choosing those that are in the highest contestation of land-use tension,
environmental conflicts, climate impacts, economic development needs, and urban-rural
division, and by setting the study period for 20 years to allow pieces of evidence of institutional
evolution or change to be included. The use of semi-structured in-depth interviews without
time limits allowed a large amount of information to surface for this subject. The shortcoming
of this semi-structured in-depth interview method is the substantial quantity and heterogeneity
of the information generated, which complicated the analysis process.
217
Nevertheless, given that this is qualitative research, the large quantity and diversity of
information can still be considered advantageous. Furthermore, the professional qualitative
data analysis software MaxQDA has enabled a robust and thorough content analysis. Finally,
a multi-criteria assessment (MCA) enabled a comprehensive evaluation of the three UGS
planning and governance cases. The positive side of the MCA is the multiple references it has
as the foundation, while the downside is that the MCA was conducted only by the researcher.
The result might have been even more compelling if conducted both by the researcher and the
interviewees.
8.3 Policy Recommendations

Based on the thorough institutional analysis of the local UGS governance in Guangzhou, China,
the researcher presents the following recommendations for policymakers for better UGS
governance practices in the future:
• Recognise UGS as an essential part of the complex urban social/ecological system and
attach importance to the ecosystem services and ecological values of UGS by defining
them with an exclusive and clear set of property rights.
• Extend the time and scope of information public exposure for individual or group actors
to be better informed and to fully participate in UGS governance.
• Allow more time in the UGS planning process to enable more internal synergy to raise
or increase between departments. This would also allow more feedback from non-state
actors, including urban migrants, thereby improve inclusivity.
• Improve the accountability mechanism so that state- and non-state actors could better
fulfil their rights and responsibilities.
• Comission more scientific research on the science-policy nexus of UGS to enhance the
scientific rigour and policy effectiveness of UGS governance for climate change
adaptation, urban health and wellbeing improvement.
• Enhance the local narratives of climate change and the nexus between UGS and climate
change to improve citizens' awareness of climate change.
• Accurate monetisation of ecosystem services could facilitate more ambitious UGS
governance, yet it has so far remained a scientific challenge. Instead, local governments
may focus on cultivating intrinsic values for citizens that treats UGS as CPR and are
more ecologically oriented.
218
• Increase the number of long-term UGS governance arrangements and foster a more
systemic approach to climate resilience, urban health, and wellbeing across
administrative levels for the middle- to long-term.
8.4 Key Scientific Contributions and Limitations of This Research
8.4.1 Key scientific contributions
One important scientific contribution of this thesis is having introduced the common-pool
resource (CPR) theory to understand CPR in both an urban setting and in the Chinese socio-
economic and political setting. This research complements existing studies on UGS governance,
which primarily depart from the perspectives of urban planning, landscape ecology, urban
ecology, or political economy. The CPR theory has been well used in many countries such as
Nepal, Switzerland, Brazil, India, the United States to understand resource sustainability
governance but has been rarely applied to analyse empirical resource governance in the
Chinese socio-economic and political settings. The concepts such as property rights bundles,
collective choice arrangements, transaction costs and institutional change yielded new insights
about the power dynamics and interactions between actors, the processes of policy formation
and dissemination, and the central-local government coordination and their evolution trends.
These new insights have helped researchers understand why sometimes even ecologically
conscient, socially just, and well-versed urban plans could fail.
Besides, this research tested the applicability of the CPR theory - a set of concepts and
analytical elements created by scholars within the Western social and economic context to case
studies in the Chinese urbanisation context, especially at the local level, which is broadly
considered distinctive to the Western ones. There are limits to doing so. One of such limits
might be the unfamiliarity of the interviewees, for which they often were surprised by the
questions asked. Another limit is that the CPR theory could not explain every finding in the
empirical analysis. Nonetheless, these reactions precisely showed the novelty of the
perspective introduced and the potential of yielding insights undiscovered before. However, at
the same time, applying these so-called "Western" concepts and analytical elements in the
Chinese context also helps to reduce the limits of the results only being applicable back to
Western realities.
219
Another important scientific contribution of this research is having identified the need to define
UGS with a set of property rights different than those of land resource. To attach importance
to the ecosystem services and ecological values of UGS, it is necessary to define them with an
exclusive and clear set of property rights.
Furthermore, this thesis has provided a detailed illustration to show how China's urban
planning has primarily aligned with the evolutionary trends in Western urban planning theories.
China's urban planning practices evolved 1) from viewing cities as simple, physical to complex,
social-ecological systems, 2) from focusing on the comprehensive "end-state" of planning and
the aesthetic-oriented "city beautification" movements and to the rational process of planning,
3) from context insensitive (political, economic, and environmental) to context-sensitive, 4)
from local non-state actors exclusive to local actors inclusive, and 5) from focusing on the
method of planning to the practical problems that planning seeks to resolve.
8.4.2 Limitations of the IAD framework and the MCA method for this research
Although scholars are increasingly finding the IAD framework convincing for analysing a vast
range of action situations thanks to the powerful meta-language that Ostrom (2005) developed
after decades of theoretical inquiry and empirical testing, there are some limitations using the
IAD framework to analyse UGS governance in the Chinese context. First, the IAD framework
is developed by Ostrom (2005), an American political scientist who drew empirical evidence
largely from the US and other less centralised political contexts around the world. Compared
to most empirical evidence Ostrom had drawn on, the Chinese socio-economic and political
contexts are drastically different in many ways: geographical and demographical sizes, the pace
of environmental change, the tension between economic development and environmental
protection, the systematic effect of policy change orchestrated by the central government,
cultural perceptions of the environment, and access to official information by the public. To
compensate for this shortage, this thesis elaborated a detailed chapter of contextualisation and
case introduction (see Chapter V). In addition, even though the meta-language of the IAD
framework is powerful for conducting institutional analysis for CPR governance, the researcher
also finds the meta-language too dry to convey a normative, value-embedded message, e.g., on
climate resilience, or environmental sustainability in general, which is quite necessary for this
research. Although the MCA is an emerging method well praised for its capability to navigate
220
complex, multi- and interdisciplinary research (Chambwera et al., 2015), the method is
sometimes criticised for being subjective, especially if it is used in non-participatory research.
8.5 Future Research Directions

A few future research directions emerged from this thesis. One of the directions can be picked
up from the intrinsic-value-related institutional barriers identified in this research and the new
research can focus on how these intrinsic-value-related factors influence UGS governance.
Another future research direction is to understand what kind of property rights bundles could
be suitable for CPRs like UGS, to reflect the ecosystem services and ecological values of UGS
more appropriately. Besides, the Multi-Criteria Assessment (MCA) is a modern research
method for governance studies. Thanks to its flexible, adaptive nature, future research can and
should experiment with diverse ways of conducting MCAs to determine its potential for
informing urban environmental and climate governance. Finally, the institutional change
currently taking place in China under Ecological Civilisation is a fascinating phenomenon,
with immense implications across sectors, levels, and population, which requires more research
to understand further its patterns, approaches, and long-lasting effects on the Chinese society
and its sustainability in this rapidly changing and drastically uncertain post-pandemic era under
climate change.
221
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ANNEX
1. Form of Informed Consent for Interview

采访同意书
Background 背景
This interview aims to gather data for the PhD
research project "Governance of Urban Green 本次采访旨在为博士候选人刘洁玲的博士
Spaces in China - Institutional Theories and 研究项目“中国城市绿地的治理——制度理论
Analysis with Case Studies from Guangzhou" of
Jieling Liu, PhD Candidate in the Interdisciplinary 和案例分析以广州为例”收集数据。刘洁玲是
Program on Climate Change and Sustainable 葡萄牙里斯本大学社会科学学院气候变化与可
Development Policies at the Institute of Social
Sciences – University of Lisbon (ICS-ULisboa), 持续发展政策跨学科项目的博士候选人以及中
Portugal, and junior researcher at the "Urban Health 国科学院城市环境研究所“城市健康与福祉—
and Wellbeing - A Systems Approach" (UHWB)
program at the Institute of Urban Environment - —系统性方法科学”项目的初级研究员。本次
Chinese Academy of Sciences (IUE-CAS). The 访谈的理想受访者包括但不限于地方政府官
ideal candidates of this interview include but are
not limited to local government officials, urban 员、城市规划师、城市治理顾问、环境和气候
planners, urban governance consultants, 政策学者、土地产权所有者、土地实际使用者
environmental and climate policy scholars,
landowners, land appropriators, and residents. The 以及居民。本次访谈的问题具有低敏感性的特
researcher declares that the proposed questions of 征，并且受访人只限于成年人及非弱势人群。
this interview will be non–sensitive topics only, and
will be towards adults, non-vulnerable populations
only.
参加条件
Conditions to participate 研究人员刘洁玲诚邀您自愿参加此次半结
You are invited to participate in the semi-
structured, in-depth interviews voluntarily. Your 构深度访谈。您的答案将被保密，仅用于本研
answers will be kept confidential and used solely 究。所有采访数据将根据您的喜好进行记录，
for this research. All the interview data will be
collected, either in audio recording or hand-written 如音频记录或手写笔记，然后将其以保密、匿
notes, depending on your preference, and will then 名和编码的方式进行存储和处理。
be stored and treated in a confidential, anonymous
and codified way.
签署此同意书，即表示您同意参加与研究
By signing this consent form, you agree to 人员刘洁玲的半结构深入定性访谈，并允许她
participate in this semi-structured, in-depth
qualitative interview with the researcher, Jieling 将您的答案用作其博士研究项目的数据或证
Liu, and permit her to use your answers as 据。研究人员将保留双方签署的同意书的一份
data/evidence for her PhD research project. The
researcher will retain one copy of the consent form 副本。您将获得同意书的副本，以记录您所签
signed by both parties. You will be given a copy of 署的内容。根据对话的发展情况，本次半结构
the consent form as a record for what you have
signed up. 深度访谈可能会持续 1-2 小时。
The semi-structured, in-depth interview could last
between 1- 2 hours, depending on the 研究人员刘洁玲提前感谢您的合作！
development of the conversation.
The researcher Jieling Liu appreciates your

collaboration!
同意参与研究
264
Consent to Participate in Research

本人， _________________ ，自愿同意参
I, _________________, voluntarily agree to 加此研究。
participate in this interview for the research.
1. 我了解，即使同意立即参加，在采访期
1. I understand that even if I agree to participate
now, I can withdraw at any time during the 间我也可以随时退出或拒绝回答任何问
interview or refuse to answer any question 题，而不会造成任何后果。
without any consequences of any kind. 2. 我了解我可以在采访后的两周内撤消使
2. I understand that I can withdraw permission to 用采访数据的同意书，在这种情况下，
use data from my interview within two weeks 采访记录将被删除。
after the interview, in which case the material
will be deleted. 3. 在本采访前，研究人员已通过书面形式
3. Before this interview, I have had the purpose 向我解释了这项研究的目的和性质，并
and nature of the study explained to me in 且我也得到了提出关于这项研究相关问
writing, and I have had the opportunity to ask 题的机会。
questions about the study. 4. 我了解，参与此次采访需要我分享与该
4. I understand that participation involves sharing
研究选定的三个广州城市绿地规划和治
the insights of my work and my opinions
directly or indirectly related to the three chosen 理案例直接或间接相关的专业见解和观
cases of urban green space planning and 点。
governance in Guangzhou. 5. 我了解参与这项研究不会直接或间接地
5. I understand that I will not benefit directly or 给我带来好处。
indirectly from participating in this research. 6. 我了解我为这项研究提供的所有信息都
6. I understand that all information I provide for
this study will be treated confidentially. 会被保密。
7. I understand that in any report on the results of 7. 我了解，在任何有关这项研究结果的报
this research, my identity will remain 告中，我的身份都将保持匿名。研究人
anonymous. This will be done by changing my 员表示，可以通过更改我的名字并掩饰
name and disguising any details of my 采访的任何可能揭示我身份的有关细节
interview that may reveal my identity or the
来保持匿名。
identity of people I speak about.
8. I understand that disguised extracts from my 8. 我了解采访研究人员发表的著作中可能
interview may be quoted in the 会引用我的采访中变相的摘录，包括科
interviewer/researcher's published work, 学论文、博士论文、博客文章等。
including scientific papers, dissertation, blog 9. 我了解，通过签署本同意书，现在至论
posts, and more. 文发表后的一年内，我可以从研究人员
9. I understand that signed consent forms, original
audio recordings, and transcripts of my 共享的在线存储服务中获取原始的录音
interview (if applicable) can be obtained from 或采访记录（如适用）。
an online storage service shared by the 10. 我了解我可以自由地与参与研究的任何
researcher for the period up until one year after 人联系，以寻求进一步的澄清和信息。
her dissertation.
10. I understand that I am free to contact any of the
people involved in the research to seek further
clarification and information.
Please choose the following options that apply:

265
I agree that my interview will be recorded by 请选择以下符合选项：我同意我的采访将

- Audio 被以下方式记录
- Video
• 录音
- Handwriting notes only
• 录像
Names, affiliations and contact details of the • 仅手写笔记
interviewee:
Name: 受访者的姓名、隶属关系和联系方式：
Affiliation and contact details: 姓名：
Date: 隶属单位和联系方式：
Signature:
日期：
签名：
The researcher believes the participant is giving
informed consent to participate in this interview.
研究人员认为参与者已获得知情并同意参
Names, affiliations and contact details of the 加此次采访。
researcher:
Name: Jieling Liu
研究人员的姓名、隶属单位和联系方式：
Affiliation and contact details: Institute of Social
Sciences – University of Lisbon 姓名：刘洁玲
jielingliu@campus.ul.pt 隶属单位和联系方式：里斯本大学社会科学
Date: 研究所，jielingliu@campus.ul.pt
Signature: 日期：
签名：
266
2. Semi-Structured In-Depth Interview Outline
半结构深入访谈大纲
Part of the research data in this thesis is obtained through semi-structured in-depth interviews
with officials from the Guangzhou Municipal Government, urban planning professionals,
urban governance consultants, academic researchers, urban land appropriators (private
enterprises, etc.), and community/residents. This outline contains initial questions for
identifying the expertise of interviewees.
The table (with the Chinese version below) below presents the main research questions of this
research and the questions formulated accordingly for the semi-structured in-depth interviews.
本⽂的部分研究数据通过与广州市政府官员、规划专员、城市管理顾问专家、学
术研究员、城市土地使用者（私营企业等）、社区居民进行深度访谈所得。下表列举
了本论文的主要研究问题，以及在此基础上提出的用之与采访对象交流的半结构深入
访谈问题。
267
SEMI-STRUCTURED IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Questions oriented for experts
MAIN RESEARCH in land resources and land Questions oriented for experts in urban landscape Questions oriented for experts in
CORRESPONDING
QUESTIONS & SUB- economics (government ecology / green space planning (government officials, institutions and governance
VARIABLES
QUESTIONS officials, land economics urban planning scholars and practitioners, and (government officials and
scholars and urban residents) scholars)
governance consultants)
Please answer all questions within the contexts of China’s urbanisation and the city of Guangzhou.
1. The ownership rights of urban
land resources in China are
public, and urban green spaces
is a category of urban
development land. What are the
5. Most Chinese cities have gone through the path from
advantages and disadvantages of 9. In the past two decades, have
expansive to intensive urban development. During this
this arrangement, in your there been any policies or
process, what has changed in the formal principles of
opinion, and why? regulations that are beneficial to
urban planning?
2. The processes of leasing, use urban green space planning and
6. Is there a general goal or standard for the entire
and gentrification of urban land governance at the central and local
country for urban green space planning? What is that?
resources are often dominated levels? If so, what are they?
For what does this goal/standard serve, and does it have
by pursuits of economic 10. What are the changes you have
any disadvantages?
benefits. Are the social and envisioned or observed happening
7. During the New Millennium Year, China redefined its
environmental benefits included within the city-level government, Formal Rules-in-use
urbanisation vision and made long-term urban
in consideration when it comes following the ministerial reform
development plans. What were the main objectives of
to these activities? If so, how are under the environmental
Guangzhou’s urban planning at that time? How is it
Q1. What institutional these dimensions measured? governance framework
different from the current goal?
facilitations or challenges Please exemplify using the “Ecological Civilisation”?
8. The urban land resources in Guangzhou have become
have Chinese urban practices of Guangzhou. 11. What do you think the reform
increasingly scarce in the past two decades. How is this
governments received or 3. What are the changes and of the government system will
scarcity reflected in the work of the urban planning
confronted when planning tendencies in urban land bring about changes in urban green
department? How was the planning and creation of urban
and managing UGS? resource management in the last space planning and governance?
green spaces affected?
20 years?
Q1.1 What are the formal 4. Have these tendencies
policy facilitations and influenced the way urban green
challenges that Chinese urban spaces are planned and
governments have received or managed? If so, how?
confronted when planning 20. In the New Millennium Year,
and managing UGS? 15. From the perspective of urban development the Chinese central government
Q1.2 What are the informal comprehensive planning, what do you think should be proposed a path of “Scientific
normative facilitations and considered in the planning and governance of urban Development”, whilst nowadays
challenges that Chinese urban green spaces? the trend is “People-Centred
governments have received or 16. From the perspective of landscape ecology, what do Development”. Many scholars also
12. In your opinion, what
confronted when planning you think should be considered in the planning and consider that China’s urbanisation
constitutes the economic, social,
and managing UGS? governance of urban green spaces? has primarily been “tech-centred”
and environmental values of
17. In the process of rapid urbanisation, urban density – both technically and
urban green spaces,
increases, and the socio-economic system is becoming technologically. What is your
respectively?
increasingly complex, and the rules for the use of urban opinion on this?
13. What roles do you think
land resources are increasingly demanding. How do you 21. Are there any elements in the
urban green spaces should play Informal Rules-in-
think this reality affects the planning of urban green local traditional culture beneficial
in urban development? Why? Use
spaces? for urban green space planning and
14. From the perspective of
18. The economic upgrades in cities have driven governance? Is there any
urban land resources and land
residents to have higher standards for the quality of life, conventional urbanisation thinking
economics, what do you think
social well-being, and for the urban environment. How that is unfavourable for urban
should be considered in the
do you think this reality affects the planning of urban green space planning and
planning and governance of
green spaces? governance? Please exemplify
urban green spaces?
19. The impact of climate change, such as heatwaves, with the city of Guangzhou.
heavy rains, floods, and air pollution, has increasingly 22. From the perspective of
challenged urban infrastructural planning. How do you institutions and governance, what
think this reality affects the planning of urban green do you think we should consider in
spaces? the planning and governance of
urban green spaces?
• Case 1: Ecological Corridor Conceptual Plan

• Case 2: Haizhu Wetland Park (converted from an orchard)
• Case 3: Tianhe Sponge City Demo Site
Q2. How have local

26. What were the urban environmental conditions,
governments managed to
community characteristics, and the central and local
upscale UGS towards more
regulations/guidance taken into consideration in planning
effective NbS? 23. In your opinion, is the
and management of Case 1 / Case 2 / Case 3?
Q2.1 What has been the existing state of urban green
27. Could you please list the stakeholders involved in the
approach of the Guangzhou space in Guangzhou restricted Biophysical
planning, funding, implementation, and management of
local governments for by particular land-use history, 34. What are the short- and long- Conditions
Case 1 / Case 2 / Case 3?
planning new UGS and topography, or socio-economic term objectives and strategic Community
28. How did the municipal government organise the
managing them? factors? approaches in establishing and Attributes
planning of urban green spaces with other stakeholders
Q2.2 Has the UGS in 24. What measures have been managing urban green spaces in Rules-in-use
(interactions with sub-level governments, public and
Guangzhou been effective as undertaken to increase land for Guangzhou? Actors
private stakeholders, and citizens) in Case 1 / Case 2 /
an NbS and enhanced local green infrastructures in the last 35. To what extent are these plans Action Situation
Case 3? Have any investment or incentive policies been
climate resilience and urban 20 years in Guangzhou? supported by commitments and Interaction
introduced to strengthen the implementation of these
health and wellbeing? 25. Proportionally speaking, budget allocations? Outcome
projects?
how much land within the city Evaluative Criteria
29. Was Case 1 / Case 2 / Case 3 a cost-benefit effective
consists of urban green spaces
project? Who were the primary beneficiaries of this
20 years ago and now?
project? Who didn’t benefit from it?
30. How did the implementation of Case 1 / Case 2 /
Case 3 come out? To what extent does the project meet
268
the needs of residents? Did it contribute to improving the

urban green space in Guangzhou in general? Why?
31. Were there any monitoring and performance
evaluation schemes applied in Case 1 / Case 2 / Case 3?
If so, what criteria were used?
32. What do you think of the quality (size,
distribution/accessibility, biodiversity, connectivity, etc.)
of urban green spaces that currently exist in the city of
Guangzhou?
33. Do you think nature-based solutions such as the
Tianhe Sponge City demo site can effectively restore the
degraded urban environments? Do you think the current
layout and management schemes of urban green spaces
in Guangzhou can effectively address climate change
impacts such as heatwaves, flashfloods, and air pollution
on the city? Why?
Q3. What are the good
practices to be shared?
Q3.1 What are the good

36. Are there any 38. Is there any good urban
practices in land-use from the 37. Are there any good urban green space planning
recommendable experiences management practices to be shared
three case studies? practices to be shared from the three case studies above?
related to the arrangements of in Guangzhou’s experiences? Outcome
Q3.2 What are the good Please explain from the aspects of cost management,
land-use types and land property Please explain from the aspects of Evaluation
practices in UGS planning planning methods, stakeholder participation and
rights from the three case studies institutional innovation.
from these case studies? implementation.
above to be shared?
Q3.3 What are the good
practices in urban governance
in general from these three
case studies?
Q4. Why some challenges
persisted despite centralised 39. How do the strong political 43. How do the strong political
government system and determination and centralised determination and centralised
strong political system in the Chinese central system in the Chinese central
determination? government manifest themselves government manifest themselves
41. How do the strong political determination and
in urban land resource in urban governance and
centralised system in the Chinese central government
Q4.1 How do the strong management? What does the institutions? What does the
manifest themselves in urban green space planning? Outcome
political determination and concept ‘Ecological concept ‘Ecological Civilisation’
What does the concept ‘Ecological Civilisation’ entail? Evaluation
centralised government Civilisation’ entail? entail?
42. What are the urban green space planning related
system manifest themselves? 40. What are the land-use 44. What are the urban governance
challenges revealed in the three case studies above to be
Q4.2 What are the remaining related challenges revealed in and institutions related challenges
resolved? Why is it challenging to resolve them?
challenges to be resolved? the three case studies above to revealed in the three case studies
Q4.3 Why is it challenging to be resolved? Why is it above to be resolved? Why is it
resolve these remaining challenging to resolve them? challenging to resolve them?
challenges?
Table 25: Semi-structured in-depth interview questions and corresponding variables in the
IAD Framework
269
半结构深度访谈问题
土地资源与土地经济相关问
主要研究问题与展开政府体制与城市治理相关问
题（请政府官员、土地经济城市（绿色基建）规划管理 / 景观生态 / 生态修复相关问题（请对应变量
问题题（请政府官员及学者回
学者及城市治理顾问专家回政府官员、城市规划学者及从业者，以及居民回答）
答）
答）
请您根据中国城镇化以及广州市的情境回答问题。
1.中国的城市土地资源的所
有权为国有，城市绿地隶属
城市发展用地。您认为这种
安排对规划城市绿地是利是 9.在过去二十年是否出现了
5.中国城市大多经历了从粗放型到集约型的发展道路，在这过
弊？为何？利好城市绿地规划和治理的
程中，城市规划在正式规范上发生了何种变化？
2.城市土地资源的租赁、使政策或规章制度？若是，有
6. 是否存在一个全国的城市绿地规划普遍性目标/标准？该目标/
用和升级的过程常重视经济哪些？
标准是什么以及有何用处？缺点在哪里？
Q1.在规划和管理城市效益。城市土地利用的社会 10.中央政府现今在 “生态⽂
7.千禧年时中国在城镇规划方面重新定义了愿景并作出了长远正式实践规
绿地时，中国城市政和环境生态效益是否纳入考明” 理念指导下进行的部级
府在制度上面临哪些的规划。广州市的城镇规划的主要目标是什么？与现在的目标则
量以及是如何被衡量的？请体制改⾰会对市级政府内部
挑战？有何区别？
您以广州为例解释。制度带来何种变化？
8.广州的城市土地资源在过去二十年间越发稀缺，这种稀缺性
Q1.1 正式制度方面， 3. 在城市土地资源管理方 11.您认为这次的政府系统体
在城市规划部门的工作中如何体现？城市绿地规划建设受到了
在规划和管理城市绿面，近二十年有何变化趋制改⾰会对城市绿地规划和
何种影响？
地时，中国城市政府势？治理造成哪些改变？
有哪些利好政策方 4.这些变化趋势影响了城市
针？面临哪些挑战？绿地的规划和管理吗？是如
Q1.2 非正式制度方何影响的？
面，在规划和管理城 20. 千禧年时中央政府提倡
15.从城市发展综合规划的视角来考虑，您认为城市绿地规划治
市绿地时，中国城市 ‘科学发展观’，现在提倡‘以
理的需要考虑哪些因素？
政府有哪些利好政策 12.您认为城市绿地资源的经人为本’。也有很多学者认
16.从景观生态学的视角来考虑，您认为城市绿地的规划治理需
方针？面临哪些挑济、社会以及环境价值分别为，中国的城市发展主要以
要考虑哪些因素？
战？在于哪些？技术为本，您是怎么看的？
17.快速城市化进程中，城市密度提⾼及经济模式愈加复杂，对
13.您认为城市绿地资源在城 21.是否有些本土传统文化是
城市土地资源使用安排要求更⾼，您认为这一现实如何影响对
市发展中应该扮演何种角有利于城市绿地规划治理非正式实践
城市绿地资源的规划︖
色？为什么？的？是否有些城镇化的传统规则
18.城市经济⽔平提⾼，带动居民对健康和社会福祉的生活品质
14.从土地资源与土地经济的思路是对其不利的？请您以
要求提⾼，对城市环境质量要求也更⾼，您认为这一现实如何
视角来考虑，您认为城市绿广州为例解释。
影响对城市绿地的规划︖
地规划治理的需要考虑哪些 22.从制度和政府治理的视角
19.气候变化的影响，如热浪、暴雨洪涝灾害、空气污染等愈发
因素？来考虑，您认为城市绿地规
挑战城市对其基础设施的布局，您认为这一现实如何影响对城
划治理的需要考虑哪些因
市绿地的规划？
素？
• 案例一：生态廊道概念性规划
• 案例二：万亩果园改造为海珠湿地公园
• 案例三：天河海绵城市大观湿地公园试点
26.案例 1 / 2 / 3 中，其当时广州的城市自然环境条件、相关居民
群体特征以及所涉及的央地法规方案，请您介绍一下？
27. 参与到案例 1 / 2 / 3 的规划、筹资、实施以及管理的利益相关
者，请您列举一下？
28.在案例 1 / 2 / 3 中，市政府是如何组织其他利益相关者一起规
Q2.地方政府如何管理
城市绿地以使其作为划城市绿地的（与下一层级的政府部门、私营企业以及居民互
23.依您看来，广州的城市绿
更有效率的自然解决之间的互动）？是否出台了哪些投资或激励政策用于加强这些
方案？地现存状态是否受到了某些自然环境条
绿地项目的实施？
用地历史、地貌形态或者社 34.广州市在建设和管理城市件、社群特
29.案例 1 / 2 / 3 在成本效益方面是否成功？那些群体/利益相关
Q2.1 广州地方政府如会经济因素所制约？绿地上短期以及长期的目标征、实践规
者是主要受益者？哪些没能从中受益？
何管理城市绿地? 24.过去二十年间，广州采取是什么？有何实现目标的策则、参与
30.案例 1 / 2 / 3 的实施效果如何？总体而言，该项目在多大程度
Q2.2 广州城市绿地作了哪些措施来增加城市绿地略？者、行动情
上满足了居民的需求？是否改善了广州的城市绿地状况？为什
为自然解决方案是否用地？ 35.在多大程度上这些规划目景、互动、
么？
逐渐更有效率？ 25.广州市的绿地面积与全市标有承诺和预算拨款支持？结果，评估
31.案例 1 / 2 / 3 的实施是否得到了监督和评估？如是，监督评估
土地面积的比例，在 20 年前准则
的标准有哪些？
和现在分别是多少?
32.您认为广州城市绿地的总体质量如何（请就规模、分布、可
达性、物种多样性以及连接性等方面解释）？
33.您认为广州以自然为本设计的方案，诸如海绵城市试点，能
有效修复被污染和破坏的城市环境吗？您认为广州现有的城市
绿地资源的规划和治理总体上能有效应对如热浪、暴雨洪涝灾
害、空气污染等气候变化影响吗？为什么？
36.以上三个案例中有哪些良 37.以上三个案例中有哪些良好的规划经验值得分享？请您分别
Q3.有哪些良好的经验 38.以上三个案例中有哪些良结果、评估
好的关于土地利用类型和土从成本、规划手法、利益相关者参与以及实施四个方面来解
值得分享？好的管理经验值得分享？请准则
地产权安排经验值得分享？释。
Q3.1 以上三个案例中您从制度创新的层面来解

有哪些良好的土地使释。
用经验值得分享？
Q3.2 I有哪些良好的规
划经验值得分享？
Q3.3 有哪些良好的管
理经验值得分享？
Q4.在强大政治决心和
集中的体制下，为何 39. 在城市土地资源管理方 43.在城市治理和制度方面，
仍有些挑战未能解
决？面，中央政府的强大政治决中央政府的强大政治决心和
心和集中的体制表现在哪集中的体制表现在哪里？
Q4.1 中央政府的强大里？“生态文明”这一指导理 41.在城市绿地规划方面，中央政府的强大政治决心和集中的体 “生态文明”这一指导理念有
结果、评估
政治决心和集中的体念有哪些含义？制表现在哪里？“生态文明”这一指导理念有哪些含义？哪些含义？
准则
制表现在哪里？ 40.以上三个案例研究揭示了 42.以上三个案例研究揭示了哪些在城市绿地方面仍需解决的问 44.以上三个案例研究揭示了
Q4.2 有哪挑战未能解哪些在土地使用方面仍需解题？为何解决这些问题具有难度？哪些在城市治理和制度方面
决？决的问题？为何解决这些问仍需解决的问题？为何解决
Q4.3 为何仍未能解题具有难度？这些问题具有难度？
决？
半结构化深度访谈问题大纲及对应 IAD 框架中的变量
271
3. Selected semi-structured in-depth interview excerpts

(original in Chinese)
Zhao: “The common practice of the central government is to give a general task and some
general and guiding indicators, for example, building a low-carbon city. How does the local
government implement it? Every city needs to make its plans according to local conditions and
development needs. Some cities will focus on the development of green buildings. Some cities
may have a better climate, and they would focus on developing more urban green spaces. In
contrast, others may focus on optimising the industrial structure, penalising enterprises with
high pollution and low efficiency, or ordering them to conduct improvements, or ordering them
to close. In this process, the city government plays a highly coordinated and presiding role and
work with the lower-level governments to achieve the tasks or goals given by the central
government.”
(Originally in Chinese: “中央政府的惯例做法是给出一个总任务和一些普遍性的，指导
性的指标。比如说，建设低碳城市。地方政府怎么实施呢？每个城市都需要因地制宜，
做出自己的方案。有些城市会专注于发展绿色建筑。有一些城市可能气候比较优良，
会专注于城市绿化，还有一些城市会专注于优化产业结构，把高污染低效能的工业企
业处罚或勒令改进，或勒令关门。这个过程中城市政府需要扮演一个高度协调主持工
作的角色，与下级政府共同达成中央城府给出的任务或目标。”)
Xiao:“For example, for constructing Low-Carbon cities, the mayor would discuss plans with
city government officials and experts before making the final collective decision together with
the Urban and Rural Planning Management Committee. If the mayor alone says that this plan
is good, it is not possible (to pass). For example, the mayor said that he wanted to focus on
building more urban green spaces, a department chief on land resources or a land economy
expert would likely say that the cost of land resources for planting trees is relatively high and
would ask the land economy experts to do some calculations. Planting trees may result in the
loss of some more direct and more efficient economic benefits, such as building real estate. In
such circumstance, the department chief of urban and rural construction may say that they
272
happen to have a residential real estate development project, which could contribute to
building Low-Carbon cities by building apartments that fit green building standards.”
(Originally in Chinese: 比如低碳城市建设，市长会与市政府委员以及行业专家一起讨论
方案。最后城乡规划管理委员会一起来集体决定。如果市长他一个人说这个方案好，
那是不可以的。比如这个市长说他想要专注于城市绿化，土地资源的政府委员或者专
家很可能会说种树的土地资源成本比较大。让土地经济学专家算一下，可能种树会导
致失去一些更高效率的经济收益，比如说盖房地产。这时候城乡建设的政府委员可能
会说，我们正好有个开发商，要不让他建几万平米的房子全部让他用绿色建筑吧。”)
He: “The Sponge City project has received strong support from the Guangzhou Municipal
Government， and now they are establishing a demonstration site in Tianhe District. However,
at the same time, the urban planning and construction departments are also experiencing
resistance from the bureau of water resources. As the construction of Sponge City necessitates
ecological and natural methods for flood retention and wastewater treatment, there will be
fewer budgets in the future for the bureau of water resources and negatively impact its
downstream stakeholders. Therefore, a conflict of interest has arisen between different
departments within the municipal government, and this conflict can be understood as the
coordination or negotiation cost within the municipal government.”
(Originally in Chinese: 海绵城市这个方案得到了广州市政府的大力支持，然后现在他们
正在天河区建立一个实验点。但是同时，规划部门也在经受水利部门的一个阻力，因
为建海绵城市就是用生态和自然的方式去排水，就意味着水利部门的预算会下降，其
下游的水利工程利益相关者也会受到了影响。因此在市政府内部的不同部门间产生了
利益冲突，这一冲突也就可以理解为政府内部的协调成本。”)
Yuan:“Ordinary citizens have the legal rights to be informed and make decisions about the
environment. The government generally has a process for publicizing information on
construction projects to obtain public feedback on environmental impacts. In addition, the
public can participate in the improvement of a particular project through supervision, and
273
reporting, if they find certain decisions or actions of a government department or an official

suspicious or improper.”
(Originally in Chinese: “公众有环境知情权和环境决策权，政府公开建设项目的信息一
般有一个公示的过程以求得市民意见反馈。此外公众对于政府官员或部门有操作不当
的嫌疑可以通过监督和举报的形式参与到项目的改善上来。”)
Cai:“In 2011, the Guangzhou Municipal Government submitted to the Ministry of Land
Resources the proposal to acquire the Wanmu Orchard farmland without changing the land
function. The Haizhu District Government then established a land acquisition work unit with
an advocacy team and land acquisition and demolition team. The advocacy team informed the
farmland owners with materials, including posters and videos of the farmland acquisition plan,
through meetings with question-and-answer sessions with representatives.”
(Originally in Chinese: “广州市政府于 2011 年向国家国土部提交了只征不转的海珠万亩
果园管理方案。海珠区政府随后成立了征地工作队，内设宣传组和征地拆迁组。宣传
组所用的材料包括征地方案海报和视频，通过与村民代表开会和问答环节来普及方案
内容。”)
Cai:“The representatives of farmland owners, whose role is to express opinions and make
decisions for the collective benefits of the farmland owners, have a significant amount of power
and long-rooted vested interests in the local social and economic network. The institutional
arrangements to trade the farmland ownership for building the Haizhu Wetland Park are
against their existing vested interests. Therefore, some farmland owner representatives were
not enthusiastic about the proposal. They further negotiated with the municipal government on
the financial compensation of farmland property right transfer.”
(Originally in Chinese: “村民代表作为村民民意的反映者以及利益安排的执权者，在当
地的社会经济关系网络常年积累了诸多既得利益，并拥有大量权力。把农用地的所有
权出让并改成海珠湿地公园的方案和制度安排对其原来的利益安排有所冲突，因此有
部分村民代表的积极性并不高，进一步与市政府进行了出让农用地的价格的协商。”
274
Huang:“The institutional arrangements for the Wanmu Orchard farmland acquisition ignored
the impact on some actual residents of urban migrants in surrounding urban villages,
intentionally or unintentionally. Transforming the orchard into the Haizhu Wetland Park is an
improvement in the quality of the ecological environment in the area. It is clearly stipulated
that 10% of the reserved land would be used for commercial development (hotels, shops, etc.)
for the farmland owners with Guangzhou urban Hukou. These two interventions jointly
increased the semi-informal housing prices in the urban villages. The leasing price also
indirectly makes these urban villages more crowded, and the quality of life for those urban
migrants who live there further declined. In this process, the migrant workers were indirectly
negatively affected by the institutional arrangements for the Haizhu Wetland Park, and they
were not officially notified, let alone new institutional arrangements to compensate for the
negative impacts.”
(Originally in Chinese: “万亩果园征地的制度安排有意或无意地忽略了对周边村社中的
部分实际居住者外来民工的影响。万亩果园升级为海珠湿地公园是该区域的生态环境
质量的提高，明确规定 10%留用地给拥有广州户口的村民作商业发展（酒店、商铺等）
用途，两者共同推高了村社内住房租赁的价格，另外间接使得城中村更加拥挤，生活
质量进一步下降。这一过程中，外来民工受到了万亩果园征地的制度安排的间接负面
影响，并未得到正式的通知，更别论新的制度安排来补偿其所受到的负面影响。”
275
4. List of Interviewees
Interview Location of Type of Time of

Number Name Profession Affiliated Institution Field of Expertise
theme Interview Interview Interview
Land economy and institutions, resource

Academic; Zhejiang University, Land
Land Economy and environmental management, land
2 * Ho governance Academy for National Beijing in person 12-Jul-18
and Institutions allocation efficiency and governance
consultant Development (LAND)
efficiency
Land economy and institutions, resource

Land Economy and environmental management, land
3 * Tan governance Academy for National Hangzhou in person 4-Sep-18
and Institutions allocation efficiency and governance
efficiency

Land Economy Urbanisation, land planning and spatial
4 * Yue governance Academy for National Hangzhou in person 4-Sep-18
and Institutions management, and big data
Urban development and land institutions,
Academic;
Land Economy development and governance of
5 * Zhang governance Zhejiang University Hangzhou in person 6-Sep-18
and Institutions characteristic towns, urban environmental
consultant
governance and sustainable development
Academic; Government management and

Land Economy
6 * Gao governance Zhejiang University innovation, local government public Hangzhou in person 6-Sep-18
and Institutions
consultant administration
Land and urban Guangzhou Land Resource Land planning, urban and rural planning,
7 * Lin Urban planner Guangzhou phone call 24-Jan-18
planning and Planning Committee planning system
Academic;
Land Economy Government management and
8 * Wu governance Zhejiang University Hangzhou in person 1-Nov-19
and Institutions innovation, public administration
consultant
Urban Planning, Academic;

Urban planning, environment and
9 Environment and * Zhao governance Peking University Beijing in person 13-Jul-18
development
Development consultant
Urban planner; local Bureau of Urban Planning of Land planning, urban and rural planning,
10 Urban Planning * Lv Guangzhou phone call 15-Aug-19
government official Guangzhou preparation and approval of urban plans
Social
Urban planner; local Bureau of Urban Planning of Land planning, urban and rural planning, network
11 Urban Planning *Rao Guangzhou 14-Aug-19
government official Guangzhou preparation and approval of urban plans message
exchange
Guangzhou Urban Planning &

Urban planner; local Land planning, urban and rural planning,
12 Urban Planning * Deng Design Survey Research Guangzhou phone call 13-Aug-19
government official preparation and approval of urban plans
Institute

Urban planner; local Land planning, urban and rural planning,
13 Urban Planning * Xu Design Survey Research Guangzhou in person 14-Dec-17
government official preparation and approval of urban plans
Institute

Land planning, urban and rural planning,
14 Urban Planning * Liu Urban planner Design Survey Research Guangzhou in person 3-Jul-18
preparation and approval of urban plans
Institute
Academic, Urban planning theory and design,
Urban Planning, South China University of
governance regional and urban development strategy
15 Environment and * Yuan Technology, Urban Planning Guangzhou in person 11-Sep-18
consultant, urban planning, urban master planning, urban
Development Comittee of Guangzhou
planner renewal and land institutions
Academic,
Guangdong Urban and Rural Urban planning theory and design,
Urban Planning, governance
Academy of Planning and regional and urban development strategy
16 Environment and * Ma consultant, urban Guangzhou in person 28-Aug-18
Design, Urban Planning planning, urban master planning, urban
Development Planner, local
Comittee of Guangzhou renewal and land institutions
government official
Urban Planning,
Urban planning theory and design,
Environment and
Urban planner, local regional and urban development strategy
17 Development, * Zhao China Eco-City Academy / phone call 29-Aug-18
government official planning, urban master planning, urban
Institutions of
renewal and land institutions
Planning
Academic,
Urban Planning,
governance Urban planning theory and design,
18 Environment and * A. Alexandria University Egypt Beirut in person 28-Oct-18
consultant, urban environment and development
Development
planner
Urban Planning,
Environment and Academic, Philosophy and theory of urbanisation,
19 Development, *Leung governance Queen's University urban planning theory and design, / via Email 15-Aug-19
Institutions of consultant environment and development
Planning
Urban Planning,
Urbanisation, government management
Environment and Academic,
Bartlett School of Planning, and innovation, local government public
20 Development, *Wu governance Manchester in person 1-Nov-18
University College London administration and institutions of land
Institutions of consultant
economics
Planning
Urban Planning, Urban governance, urban government
Governance Guangzhou Institute for
21 Environment and * You innovation, green development and urban / via Skype 2-Nov-17
consultant Urban Innovation
Development, intergovernmental collaboration
Institutions of
Planning, Urban
Governance
Urban Planning,
Environment and
Academic, Eco Cities, Place Branding, Corporate
Development,
22 * Jon. governance TU Delft Netherlands Social Responsibility, Inclusive Suzhou in person 27-Jul-18
Institutions of
consultant Prosperity
Planning, Urban
Governance
Academic,
Urban Planning, Theoretical research and practice of
governance
23 Environment and * Yu Peking University urban and regional planning, urban and Beijing in person 13-Jul-18
consultant, urban
Development landscape design and ecological planning
planner
Turenscape Urban Planning Urban and regional planning, urban and

24 Urban Planning * He Urban planner Beijing in person 13-Jul-18
Consultancy landscape design, ecological planning
Urban Planning, Academic, Theory and method of ecological

School of Architecture -
25 Environment and * Rong governance planning, green building, and urban Beijing in person 17-Jul-18
Tsinghua University
Development consultant ecological restoration
Urban Planning,
Academic,
Environment and Guangdong Provincial Theory and method of ecological
governance
26 Development, * Xiao Academy of Environmental planning, green building, and urban Guangzhou in person 31-Aug-18
consultant, urban
Institutions of Science ecological restoration
planner
Planning
Urban Planning,
Environment and Urban development strategy, low-carbon
Design Survey Research
27 Development, * Li Urban planner eco-city, historical and cultural city Guangzhou in person 15-Aug-19
Institution, Urban Planning
Institutions of protection and urban renewal
Research Center
Planning
Urban Planning,
Environment and Management Office of the
Local government Urban planning, environment and
28 Development, * Cai Haizhu Wetland Park, Haizhu Guangzhou in person 13-Aug-19
official development, administration
Administrative District, Guangzhou
Management
Design Survey Research Urban development strategy, low-carbon
29 Urban Planning * Long Urban planner Institute; Urban Planning eco-city, historical and cultural city Guangzhou in person 14-Aug-19
Research Center / Eco-spatial protection and urban renewal
Planning & Eco-Restoration
Urban Planning,
Environment and Bureau of Land-Use and
Local government Urban planning, environment and
30 Development, *Huang Urban Planning of Haizhu Guangzhou in person 13-Aug-19
official development, administration
Administrative District
Management
Environment and
Development, Local government Bureau of Forestry and Administration and management of
31 *Zhang Guangzhou phone call 11-Aug-19
Administrative official Landscaping of Guangzhou parks and other scenic areas
Management
Academic, Health Policy and Management, Climate
Climate Change, School of Public Health, Sun
32 *Huang governance Change and Health, Environmental Xiamen in person 4-Nov-19
Urban Health Yat-sen University
consultant Epidemiology
Academic, Health Policy and Management, Climate
Climate Change, Chinese Center for Disease
33 * Liu governance Change and Health, Environmental Lisbon in person 23-Sep-18
Urban Health Control and Prevention
consultant Epidemiology
Academic, Institute of Urban
Climate Change, Environmental soil science and
34 * Zhu governance Environment, Chinese Xiamen in person 27-Nov-17
Urban Health environmental biology
consultant Academy of Sciences
Climate Change, Academic,
Climate change, urban health, multi-
35 Urban Health, * Mur. governance Public Health England Lisbon in person 23-Sep-18
agency collaboration, urban governance
Urban Governance consultant
Health system governance, intersectoral
and multi/stakeholder collaborative
36 Urban Health, *Ban. governance Asian Development Bank Xiamen in person 4-Nov-19
planning, strategic financial and
institutional planning
Public health, global environmental
37 Urban Health, * Dor. governance World Health Organization / via email Jun-20
health governance and justice
Climate Change,
Environment and
Governance C40 Climate Leadership Climate change, urban health, multi-
38 Development, * Liu / via email 3-Aug-18
consultant Network agency collaboration, urban governance
Intergovernmental
Collaboration
Climate Change,
Environment and
Governance C40 Climate Leadership Climate change, urban health, multi-
39 Development, * Xie / via email 3-Aug-18
consultant Network agency collaboration, urban governance
Intergovernmental
Collaboration
Regional atmospheric environment
Guangdong Provincial
Climate Change, Local government planning, policy, standards, and
40 *Zhang Academy of Environmental Guangzhou in person 6-Aug-18
Urban Governance official technology, water environmental
Science
management policy and mechanism
Climate Change,
Environment and
Development, Climate change and low-carbon
Academic, Chinese Academy of Social
Institutional economics, policy, development strategy
41 *Zhuang governance Sciences, CASS Thinktank Beijing in person 12-Jul-18
Reform, Urban and planning, and low-carbon city
consultant for Eco-Civilisation Studies
Governance, evaluation methods
Ecological
Civilisation
277
Climate Change,
Environment and
Development,
Academic, Institutes of Science and Climate change policies, urban
Institutional
42 * Su governance Development - Chinese development paradigm, Ecological / via Email 22-Jun-18
Reform, Urban
consultant Academy of Sciences Civilization
Governance,
Ecological
Civilisation
Climate Change,
Environment and
Development, Institute of Urban
Academic, Climate change policies, urban
Institutional Development and
43 * Li governance development paradigm, Ecological Beijing in person 13-Jul-18
Reform, Urban Environment - Chinese
consultant Civilisation
Governance, Academy of Social Sciences
Ecological
Civilisation
Climate Change, Strategic issues of ecological
Environment and construction and green development in
Development, Guangdong province, policies and
Academic,
Institutional Development Research Center regulations for environmental protection,
44 * Kang governance Guangzhou in person 6-Aug-18
Reform, Urban of Guangdong energy conservation and emission
consultant
Governance, reduction, climate change adaptation, and
Ecological institutional reform under Ecological
Civilisation Civilisation
Climate Change,
Environment and
Development, Institute of Urban
Academic, Environmental economics, urban
Institutional Development and
45 * Luo governance economy and sustainable development, Beijing in person 14-Jul-18
Reform, Urban Environment - Chinese
consultant eco-city construction
Governance, Academy of Social Sciences
Ecological
Civilisation
Urban planning, Urban planner, Urban planning, landscape design,
Morrow Architects &
46 inclusive * Liu governance sustainable urban development, people- / phone call 29-Dec-17
Planners Pte.Ltd
development consultant centred urbanism
Environmental
Head of
information Water pollution prevention and control
environmental non- China Institute of Public &
47 disclosure and * Ma and environmental information / phone call 10-Jul-18
governmental Environmental Affairs (IPE)
public disclosure, public participation
organization
participation
Urban Planning,
Environment and
Urban planner, local Guangzhou Urban Planning Formulation and implementation of urban
48 Development, * Yao Guangzhou in person 15-Aug-19
government official Research Center plans and regulations
Institutions of
Planning
Urban Planning,
Environment and
Urban planner, local Guangzhou Urban Planning Formulation and implementation of urban
49 Development, * Wang Guangzhou in person in person
government official Research Center plans and regulations
Institutions of
Planning
History of urban development and
Urban Planning, construction in China, the history of
Academic,
Environment and western urban planning thought,
governance Urban Planning Society of
50 Development, * Zhang institutional reform and urban structuring Beijing in person 15-Jul-18
consultant, urban China
Institutions of in China, and the evolution of urban
planner
Planning system planning and development in
China
5. List of Policy Documents
278
Overarching
political
Title in Time of Target Publication Coordination
Level Theme Title in English Type philosophy /
Chinese publication period entity entity
policy
principle
2001 年
Scientific
中国国 National
Communiqué on the Land Development
Greening
土绿化 Greening Status in China 2001 / communique / &
Committee
2001 Harmonious
状况公 Office
Society
报
2005 年
Scientific
中国国 National
Communiqué on the Land Development
Greening
土绿化 Greening Status in China 2005 / communique / &
Committee
2005 Harmonious
状况公 Office
Society
报
国务院
关于落
Decision of the State
Scientific
实科学 Council on Implementing All ministries
Development
Scientific Outlook on and levels of
发展观 2005 2010 strategic plan State Council &
Development and government
Harmonious
加强环 Strengthening institutions
Society
Environmental Protection
境保护
的决定
中国应 Scientific
All ministries Development,
对气候 China's National Program and levels of Resource
2007 2010 strategic plan State Council
变化国 on Climate Change government Saving &
institutions Environmental
家方案 Protection
国家环
National Scientific
境与健
Environmental Development,
National Action Plan on
康行动 Protection Harmonious
Environment and Health 2007 2015 strategic plan State Council
Bureau & Society, &
计划 (2007-2015)
Healthy People-
2007- Ministry Centred
2015 年
中国应
对气候
China's Policies and
变化的 2008 / report State Council / /
Actions on Climate Change
政策与
Climate change/ 行动
National sustainable
development 中国生
物多样
性保护
National
China National Biodiversity
战略与 strategic plan, Environmental Scientific
Conservation Strategy and 2011 2030 State Council
action plan Protection Development
行动计 Action Plan (2011-2030)
Bureau
划
2011—
2030 年
2012 年
Scientific
中国国 National Development
Communiqué on the Land
Greening & Ecological
土绿化 Greening Status in China 2012 / communique /
Committee Civilisation, &
2012
状况公 Office People-
Centred
报
国家大 National
Environmental Scientific
气污染 National Air Pollution
Protection Development
Prevention and Control 2013 2017 action plan State Council
防治行 Action Plan
Bureau & & Ecological
Meteorological Civilisation
动计划 Administration
国家适 National &
Scientific
Development
应气候 National Strategy for
local
& Ecological
2013 2020 strategic plan State Council departments of
变化战 Climate Change Adaptation
development
Civilisation, &
People-
略 and reform
Centred
Scientific
国家应 Development,
对气候 National Resource
All government
National Plan on Climate Development Saving &
变化规 2014 2020 action plan departments at
Change 2014-2020 and Reform Environmental
city level
划 2014- Commission Protection,
Ecological
2020 年
Civilisation
Environmental
环境保 Sustainable
Revision of the protection
Development
护法修 Environmental Protection 2014 / regulation State Council departments at
& Ecological
Law national and
订版 Civilisation
local levels
中国应 China's Policies and National
2015 / report / /
对气候 Actions on Climate Change Development
变化的 and Reform

Commission
政策与
行动
城市适
Sustainable
应气候 Action Plan for Urban
All government
Development
2016 2020 action plan State Council departments at
变化行 Climate Adaptation
city level
& Ecological
Civilisation
动方案
中国落 Innovation,
实 2030 Coordination,
China's National Plan on All ministries Green, Open,
年可持 Implementation of the 2030 and levels of Sharing,
续发展 Agenda for Sustainable government Sustainable
Development institutions Development
议程国 & Ecological
别方案 Civilisation
中国应
对气候
Ministry of
变化的 2018 / report Ecology and / /
Environment
政策与
行动
中国应
对气候
Ministry of
变化的 2019 / report Ecology and / /
Environment
政策与
行动
2019 年
“Two
中国国 National
Communiqué on the Land Mountains”
Greening
土绿化 Greening Status in China 2019 / communique / theory &
Committee
2019 Ecologicl
状况公 Office
Civilisation
报
“健康中 All ministries
and levels of Sustainable
国 2030” Healthy China 2030 2016 2030 strategic plan State Council
government Development
规划 institutions
全国城 Ministry of
市生态 Housing and
Urban-Rural All ministries Innovation,
保护与 National Plan of Urban
Development and levels of Coordination,
Ecological Protection and 2015 2020 strategic plan
建设规 Construction (2015-2020)
& government Green, Open,
Ministry of institutions Sharing
划 2015- Environmental
Urban spatial planning
and development 2020 年 Protection
国家新
型城镇 All ministries Scientific
National New Urbanization and levels of Development
化规划 Plan (2014–2020)
government & People-
2014- institutions Centred
2020 年
关于全
Decision of the Central
面深化 Committee of
改革若 the Communist
Scientific
Party of China on Some 2013 2020 strategic plan State Council State Council
干重大 Major Issues Concerning
Development
问题的 Comprehensively
Deepening the Reform
决定
关于加
Scientific
快推进 All ministries Development
Opinions on Accelerating
conceptual and levels of & Ecological
生态文 the Construction of 2015 2020 State Council
plan government Civilisation, &
Ecological Civilization
明建设 institutions People-
Centred
的意见
Central
Institutional reform
Leading Group
Scientific
for Deepening
生态文 Overall
Development,
Resource
明体制 Master Plan of Ecological
Reforms &
Saving &
2015 / action plan State Council Special Group
改革总 Civilization System Reform
on Reform of
Environmental
Protection,
体方案 the Economic
Human-Nature
and Ecological
Harmony
Civilization
System
中共中
Decision of the CPC
央关于 All ministries
Central Committee on
and levels of Scientific
深化党 Deepening the Reform of 2018 / strategic plan State Council
government Development
the Party and State
和国家 institutions
Institutions
机构改
280
革的决
定
深化党
All ministries Scientific
和国家 Plan to Deepen
and levels of Development
Reforms in Party and State 2018 2019 action plan State Council
机构改 Institutions
government & People-
institutions Centred
革方案
中国国 Development
民经济 as Priority,
macro socio- National All ministries People-
和社会 10th Five-Year National
economic Development and levels of Centred,
Socio-Economic 2001 2005
发展第 Development Plan
development and Reform government Economy and
plan Commission institutions Society
十个五 Coordinated
年计划 Development
中国国
民经济
和社会 macro socio- National All ministries Scientific
11th Five-Year National
economic Development and levels of Development
发展第 Socio-Economic 2006 2010
development and Reform government & People-
Development Plan
十一个 plan Commission institutions Centred
五年计
划
Macro socio-
economic planning 中国国
民经济
Scientific
和社会 macro socio- National All ministries Development,
economic Development and levels of Resource
development and Reform government Saving &
Development Plan
十二个 plan Commission institutions Environmental
Protection
五年计
划
中国国
Scientific
民经济 Development,
和社会 macro socio- National All ministries Innovation,
economic Development and levels of Coordination,
development and Reform government Green, Open,
Development Plan
十三个 plan Commission institutions Sharing,
People-
五年计
Centred
划
Scientific
广州市
Development,
All ministries
城市总 Municipal Sustainable
Master Plan of Guangzhou and levels of
2005 2010 action plan Government Development
体规划 City 2001-2010 government
of Guangzhou &
2001- institutions
Harmonious
2010 Society
广州市
Scientific
土地利 Guangzhou Development,
Municipal
用总体 Land-Use Master Plan of
2006 2020 action plan Government
Land Resources Resource-
Guangzhou City 2006-2020 and Housing Saving &
规划 of Guangzhou
Administration Harmonious
2006- Society
2020
广州市 Municipal Municipal
Ecology as
Priority,
城市绿 Urban Green Space System
Bureau of Bureau of
People-
2010 2020 action plan Parks and Parks and
地系统 Plan of Guangzhou City
Forestry of Forestry of
Centred,
Urban-Rural
规划 Guangzhou Guangzhou
Integration
广州市
Scientific
花城绿 Construction Plan of Committee of Development
Climate Municipal
Municipal Guangzhou for Flower Urban-Rural & Ecological
change/sustainable 城水城 2014 2016 strategic plan Government
level City, Green City and Water Construction Civilisation, &
of Guangzhou
development 建设方 City of Guangzhou People-
Centred
案
广州市
Innovation,
Municipal Municipal
林业和 Coordination,
The 13th Five-Year Plan Bureau of Bureau of
Green, Open,
园林十 for Forestry and Gardening 2016 2020 action plan Parks and Parks and
Sharing,
Development in Guangzhou Forestry of Forestry of
三五发 Scientific
Guangzhou Guangzhou
Development
展规划
广州市 Land
Land Resources Ecology as
海绵城 Special Plan for Sponge
special plan, Resources and
and Planning Priority,
2016 2030 technical Planning
市专项 City of Guangzhou
guideline Commission
Commission of Ecological
Guangzhou Civilisation
规划 of Guangzhou
Innovation,
广州市
Coordination,
All government
生态文 Green, Open,
Outline of Ecological Municipal institutions at
Sharing,
明建设 Civilization Construction in 2016 2020 strategic plan Government or under
Scientific
Guangzhou of Guangzhou municipal level
规划纲 Development
in Guangzhou
& Ecological
要
Civilisation
281
广州市 Innovation,
Coordination,
城市环 Environmental Green, Open,
Environmental Master Plan Municipal
境总体 of Guangzhou City 2014- 2017 2030 action plan Government
Protection Sharing,
Bureau of Scientific
规划 2030 of Guangzhou
Guangzhou Development,
2014- Environment
2030 as Priority
Municipal
Bureau of
广州市 Parks and
Forestry of Municipal
公园建 Resource-
Special Plan of Park Guangzhou & Bureau of
Saving,
设与保 Construction and Protection 2017 2035 action plan Landscape Parks and
Human-Nature
in Guangzhou Architecture Forestry of
护专项 Harmony
Planning and Guangzhou
规划 Design
Institute of
Guangzhou
广州市
生态廊
道总体 Center of Municipal
conceptual Ecology as
规划与 Ecological Corridor Master
plan,
Urban Bureau of
Priority,
Plan and Construction 2018 / Planning Parks and
生态廊 Guideline of Guangzhou
technical
Research of Forestry of
People-
guideline Centred
道规划 Guangzhou Guangzhou
Urban spatial planning 建设指
and development
引
广州市
Center of Municipal
生态廊
Ecological Corridor Urban Bureau of
technical
道地区 Regional Construction 2018 / Planning Parks and /
guideline
Guideline of Guangzhou Research of Forestry of
项目建
Guangzhou Guangzhou
设指引
广州市
生态廊
道地区 Manual for Administrative Center of
Center of
规划建 Examination and Approval
administrative
Urban
Urban Planning Ecological
of the Ecological Corridor 2018 / Planning
设项目 Regional Planning and
guideline
Research of
Research of Civilisation
Guangzhou
行政审 Construction in Guangzhou Guangzhou
批工作
手册
广州市
Center of
生态廊 Assessment Report on the
Urban
Protection and Utilization
道保护 2018 / report Planning / /
of Ecological Corridors in
Research of
利用研 Guangzhou
Guangzhou
究报告
广州市
经济和 All government
10th Five-Year Municipal macro socio- Development Scientific
社会发 Socio-Economic economic and Reform
institutions at
Development,
2001 2005 or under
展第十 Development Plan of development Commission
municipal level
Sustainable
Guangzhou plan of Guangzhou Development
个五年 in Guangzhou
计划
广州市
Scientific
11th Five-Year Municipal macro socio- Development Development,
institutions at
People-
2006 2010 or under
municipal level
Centred,
Guangzhou plan of Guangzhou Harmonious
一个五 in Guangzhou
Society
Macro socio- 年计划
economic plans 广州市
12th Five-Year Municipal macro socio- Development
institutions at
Scientific
2011 2015 or under
municipal level
Development
Guangzhou plan of Guangzhou
二个五 in Guangzhou
年计划
广州市
Scientific
13th Five-Year Municipal macro socio- Development Development,
institutions at
People-
2016 2020 or under
municipal level
Centred,
Guangzhou plan of Guangzhou Sustainable
三个五 in Guangzhou
Development
年计划
Scientific
广州市 Development,
Report on the Work of the Municipal
People-
Work Report 政府工 Municipal Government of 2001 / Report Government /
Centred,
Guangzhou of Guangzhou
作报告 Sustainable
Development
282
Scientific
People-
政府工 Municipal Government of 2002 / Report Government /
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
Scientific
People-
Centred,
Development
283
Scientific
Development,
广州市 People-
Centred,
Sustainable
作报告 Development,
Ecological
Civilisation
Scientific
Development,
广州市 People-
Centred,
Sustainable
作报告 Development,
Ecological
Civilisation
番禺区 Scientific
Report on the Work of the District
Development,
政府工 District Government of 2006 / Report Government /
Harmonious
Panyu of Panyu
作报告 Society
Development,
Harmonious
Panyu of Panyu
作报告 Society
Development,
Harmonious
Panyu of Panyu
作报告 Society
Development,
Harmonious
Panyu of Panyu
作报告 Society
Work Report
Development,
Harmonious
Panyu of Panyu
作报告 Society
番禺区
Scientific
Development
Panyu of Panyu
作报告
番禺区
Scientific
Development
Panyu of Panyu
作报告
番禺区
Scientific
Development
Panyu of Panyu
作报告
海珠区
Scientific
Development
Sub- 作报告
Haizhu of Haizhu
municipal/
District 海珠区
Scientific
level 政府工 District Government of 2010 / Report Government /
Development
Haizhu of Haizhu
作报告
海珠区
Scientific
Development
Haizhu of Haizhu
作报告
海珠区 Scientific
Development,
New
Haizhu of Haizhu
作报告 Urbanisation
Development,
Work Report New
Haizhu of Haizhu
Development,
New
Haizhu of Haizhu
海珠区
Reform &
Innovation
Haizhu of Haizhu
作报告
Scientific
Development,
People-
海珠区 Centred,
Innovation,
Coordination,
Haizhu of Haizhu
作报告 Green, Open,
Sharing,
Sustainable
Development
天河区
Work Report 政府工 District Government of 2014 / Report Government / /
Tianhe of Tianhe
作报告
284
天河区
政府工 District Government of 2015 / Report Government / /
Tianhe of Tianhe
作报告
天河区 Report on the Work of the District
政府工 District Government of 2016 / Report Government / /
Tianhe of Tianhe
作报告
天河区
New
Development
Tianhe of Tianhe
作报告
天河区 Report on the Work of the District
New
Development
Tianhe of Tianhe
作报告
天河区
New
Development
Tianhe of Tianhe
作报告
285
6. List of Scientific Publications during the PhD
• Ferreira, Lurdes J., Luís P. Dias, and Jieling Liu. 2022. Adopting Carbon Pricing Tools
at the Local Level: A City Case Study in Portugal. Sustainability 14(3):1812.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031812
• Jieling Liu, Franz Gatzweiler, Simon Hodson, Gabriele Harrer-Puchner, Giles B. Sioen,
Mamello Thinyane, Ronit Purian, Virginia Murray, Xiaofeng Yi & Alejandro Camprubi.
2022. Co-creating solutions to complex urban problems with collaborative systems
modelling - insights from a workshop on health co-benefits of urban green spaces in
Guangzhou. Cities & Health, DOI: 10.1080/23748834.2022.2026694
• Jieling Liu & Franz Gatzweiler. 2020. The Institutional Challenge to Co-Deliver Migrant
Integration and Urban Greening—Evidence from Haizhu Wetland Park Project in
Guangzhou, China. Journal of Chinese Governance. DOI:
10.1080/23812346.2020.1760069
• Jieling Liu. 2021. COVID-19 Shows Us the Need to Plan Urban Green Spaces More
Systematically for Urban Health and Wellbeing. In: Gatzweiler F. (eds) Urban Health
and Wellbeing Programme. Urban Health and Wellbeing. Springer, Singapore.
Zhejiang University Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6036-5_7. ISBN: 978-
981-336-036-5.
• Jieling Liu. 2020. Institutional Barriers and Transformation to Climate Change
Management in Emerging Coastal Megacities: A Case Study from Guangzhou, China.
Chapter of book: Handbook of Climate Change Management. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-
22759-3_37-1. Part of ISBN: 9783030227593
• Jieling Liu, Franz Gatzweiler, Manasi Kumar. 2020. An Evolutionary Complex Systems
Perspective on Urban Health. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. 2020. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2020.100815
• Jieling Liu. 2020. Narrating the Impacts of Climate Change for Urban Health Governance
in Guangzhou, China. Journal of Cities and Health. Published online: January 2020. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2019.1701945
• Thomas Elmqvist, Franz Gatzweiler, Elisabet Lindgren, Jieling Liu. 2019. Resilience
Management for Healthy Cities in a Changing Climate. Chapter of book: Marselle M.,
Stadler J., Korn H., Irvine K., Bonn A. (eds) Biodiversity and Health in the Face of
Climate Change. Springer, Cham. First Online: June 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-

3-030-02318-8_18
• Jieling Liu. 2019. Financing and Implementing Resilience with a Systems Approach in
Beirut. In: Gatzweiler F. (eds) Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme. Urban Health
and Wellbeing (Systems Approaches). Springer, Singapore.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1380-0_9. ISBN: 978-981-15-1379-4.
• Jieling Liu, Franz Gatzweiler, Luísa Schmidt. 2019. Addressing the Nexus Challenge of
Climate Change, Human Health, and Urban Sustainability. ICS Estudos e Relatórios. ISSN:
2183-6922. Available at: https://www.ics.ulisboa.pt/flipping/er2019_1/12/
• Charles Ebikeme, Franz Gatzweiler, Tolullah Oni, Jieling Liu, Andrea Oyuela & José Siri.
2019. Xiamen Call for Action: Building the Brain of the City—Universal Principles of
Urban Health, Journal of Urban Health. Published online: January 2019. Springer: Volume
96, Issue 4, pp 507–509. ©The New York Academy of Medicine. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-00342-0
287
7. Declaration of Original Authorship
I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of Climate Change
and Sustainable Development Policies based at the Institute of Social Sciences – University of
Lisbon is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of
others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is
clearly identified in it).
The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that
full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written
consent.
I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any
third party.
I declare that my thesis consists of 9,5542 words of which 69,243 are in the main text and the
rest are in the bibliography and appendices.
Jieling Liu
June 22, 2022

University of Lisbon Institute of Social Sciences

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University of Lisbon

Institute of Social Sciences

Transforming Urban Green Space Governance in China

Transforming Urban Green Space Governance in China

President of the Jury:

Members of the Jury:

Funded by the Portuguese National Foundation for Science and Technology

Resumo (em português)

com os direitos de propriedade bem definidos, os mecanismos de monitorização e sanção

Lastly, my sincere acknowledgements go to my family, my mother Chaoqiong Long, my

To Nir Aviram, Hagibor:

3.2 Overview of the Theoretical Framework 65

5.2 Institutional Contexts of China 126

7.1 Summary and Discussion of Main Findings 206

Figure 25: Problems and opportunity windows of nature-based climate management in

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

CCICED: International Cooperation on Environment and Development

NbS: Nature-based Solution

1.1 Urbanisation Trend, Environmental Degradation, and Climate Change Impacts in

1.2 Urban Green Infrastructure as Nature-based Solution and Common-Pool Resource

Backed by increasing literature on the benefits of UGI, inter-governmental organisations are

1.3 The Challenges for Adopting Nature-based Solutions in China

1.4 Research Questions, Aims, and Objectives

Table 1: Main research questions and sub-questions

This thesis aims to

The main objectives of this thesis are to

Background Research question Aims Objectives

Table 2: Overview of research questions, aims and objectives

1.5 Research Design and Methodology

humans interact, e.g., markets, private enterprises, families, community organisations,

Figure 1: Institutional Analysis and Development framework.

Source: Adapted from Ostrom, 2005: 15

The structure of this thesis is shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Structure of this thesis

2.1 The Theories

2.1.1 Ecological notion in Western urban planning theories

relatedness of natural phenomena in ecosystems and drawing examples from human-nature

2.1.2 Ecological notion and Governance philosophy in China

While the Taoism philosophy emphasises human-nature relationships, Confucianism evolved

2.2 The Practices

Functions of UGS Purpose

Table 3: Functions of UGS for climate change mitigation and adaptation

2.2.2 The technical dimension

2.2.2.1 From the perspectives of land-use and land economics

2.2.2.2 From the perspectives of urban ecology and landscape ecology

2.2.4 The social dimension

2.2.5 The political dimension

2.2.5.1 International environmental and climate governance frameworks

Together, these international governance frameworks on climate and environment have

2.2.5.2 National strategies and action plans

In summary, numerous international governance frameworks on climate and environment have

2.3 The Institutional Perspective

2.3.1 Relevance of the institutional perspective

2.3.2 Critiques on various governance approaches

2.3.2.1 Top-down and bottom-up governance

2.3.2.2 Multi-level governance

2.3.2.3 Collaborative and participatory governance

Participatory governance seeks to enable citizens to participate in policy processes (Fischer,

2.3.2.4 The emerging ‘urban’ focus in governance literature