Urban planning should be in harmony with nature

Ancient China’s Dujiangyan Irrigation system, which has functioned for over 2,000 years, offers a model for harmony between man and the environment, said Xiang Weining, professor from the School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences at East China Normal University, discussing the recent floods in several big southern cities at a symposium dedicated to ecological wisdom and practice held in Shanghai. Although new ideas and new technology have been introduced into modern urban and rural planning, the precious and fragile contract between man and nature has been breached by overwhelming technological supremacy that has affected nature more in the past two centuries than in the preceding thousands of years, Xiang said.