The area in Shanghai covered by forests, rivers, wetlands, farms, parks and other green space shrank 1.5 percent on average each year from 2005 to 2009, falling closer to the minimum threshold set by the local government, local media reported Tuesday.
The local government requires this kind of green space, which officials call ecological space, to cover 3,500 square kilometers of the city, or about 50 percent of its total area.
Zhang Lang, chief engineer of the Shanghai City Appearance and Environmental Sanitation Bureau, revealed the figures Monday at a conference on landscape architecture, according to a report in the Shanghai Morning Post. "The local ecological system is fragmented due to the continuing loss of ecological space," Zhang said. "That will lead to problems such as obstructing the migratory paths of animals, and will influence their habitat and reproduction."
The decrease in this kind of green space will not only affect animals and human beings, but also damage the local ecological system, said Wang Xiangrong, director of Fudan University's Ecology Research Center.
About 59 percent of the land in Shanghai is ecological space, Zhang said. However, the number is usually above 60 percent in developed areas.
To make up for the loss, local officials have turned to building greenbelts and parks. Public green space has risen from 9 square meters per capita in 2003 to 13 square meters per capita in 2011, according to the bureau.
Still, it will be difficult to keep the amount of ecological space in the city above 3,500 square kilometers, Wang said. "It is difficult for the city to preserve enough ecological land to stay above the bench mark because urban construction inevitably causes farmland to disappear," Wang said.
Zhang told the Global Times that the majority of the ecological space that has disappeared has been farmland, wetlands and rivers.
Authorities are trying to strike a balance between urban construction and land preservation by setting up controlled zones in dense urban construction areas, according to the bureau.