Can sponge city construction in mainland China restore the river basin hydrology to an undeveloped state?

ABSTRACTThis paper explores whether the sponge city construction implemented in China can restore the hydrological condition of the river basins through runoff depth. The annual runoff depth was calculated based on the volume capture ratio of annual rainfall (VCRAR) and compared with undeveloped and before sponge city construction. The results conclude as follows: the current rainwater source control standard benefits the hydrology recovery in China. But the difference between before sponge city construction and undeveloped is large in 12.9% of the regions. The adjustment recommendations of the VCRAR proposed in this paper are favourable to restoring the river basin hydrology.KEYWORDS: Volume capture ratio of annual rainfallrainwater source controlrunoff depthriver basin hydrologyChina AcknowledgementsWe thank the National Tibetan Plateau Data Center (http://data.tpdc.ac.cn) for its available data. We also thank the editor, associate editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationFundingThis study was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China [Grant no. 2022YFC3800500].