Landscape reconstruction planning of abandoned quarries

Abstract

Zhejiang, with a rich resource of stone, has a long history of stone extraction, where scatter thousands of traditional quarries and as a result many abandoned ones are left, which is challenged economically, ecologically and socially. On account of the soil erosion, security risks and degradation of ecosystem, reusing of the large number of abandoned quarries located in the city or the suburbs have become an important topic on sustainable development in China in resent years. These abandoned lands are double-edged sword for the local social development, if they can be effectively improved, they can not only repair the ecological network and spatial texture, but also improve the efficiency of land use and value, and activation of the depressed space, then promote the healthy and orderly development of society. Therefore, many countries have taken positive attitude to the abandoned lands, hope making them become new driving force for social development through the ecological restoration and landscape transformation. More and more abandoned lands have been recovered ecologically and rehabilitated into landscape, and new landscape conceptions have been widely accepted. The first chapter of this thesis has basic aboard and domestic abandoned quarry reconstruction case studies at the meanwhile describing the background, the current problems and solutions. Those cases are such as St. Michael football center, Hanson quarry, Shanghai Chenshan botanical gardens, the East Lake and so on. There are many other successful cases and the landscape modes of them are concluded in this thesis. Shaoxing has a long history of quarrying and those ancient ones in the cases studies are now become successful scenic areas. But how about the new left ones? The fact is that there are still large amount of abandoned quarrying lands left naked on the ground. And take Zhuji, a small subarea of Shaoxing, which is my hometown, as the example. Zhuji has mainly six quarrying areas. And the stones extracted out are used in varies ways. These abandoned lands are landscape scar on the ground and has existing or potential geological hazards. These abandoned quarries has risks but also opportunities. Chapter two contains the field work of the particular site and describes those opportunities. One of the opportunities is to transform these abandoned quarries into cemeteries, as there is a negative phenomenon of farmland occupied by tombs in the surrounding areas. As for the particular site in this thesis, the most economical way to eliminate the risk and catch the opportunity is to use the retaining wall as the tombstone and take advantage of the space between the retaining wall and the slope to burying the box of dead people’s ash. And replanting is another core solution. Chapter three is about the design proposal in detail. Mainly about the technical way of take advantage of retaining walls and planting design in the cemetery at the meanwhile using spray-sowing method to revegetation the abandoned quarry.