Public-private partnerships for implementing sponge city development : a case study of Xiamen City, China

Abstract

To mitigate the disasters caused by extreme weather induced by climate change in cities, the Chinese government has proposed the implementation of sponge cities in recent years. However, the construction of sponge cities is characterized by significant investments, long project cycles, and many risks. It is difficult to implement the project only by relying on government investment. Therefore, Public-private Partnership (PPP) model is gradually applied to sponge cities' implementation. As a model of urban infrastructure implementation, PPP can significantly reduce stakeholders' risks in some respects and accelerate infrastructure implementation in sponge cities. However, the PPP model has some disadvantages.

Therefore, the research purpose of this thesis is how to improve the sustainable development of Sponge City PPP projects by avoiding the defects of the PPP model as much as possible. This thesis mainly analyses the critical success factors in the case of Xiamen Xiang 'an Underground Comprehensive Pipeline Corridor PPP Project to discuss this problem. However, before that, the basic concepts and contents of Sponge City, PPP model and critical success factors of Sponge City PPP projects will first be introduced as the basis for discussion. The critical success factors that this thesis will discuss include value for money evaluation, financial affordability demonstration, operation mode, risk allocation, contract system, project transaction structure and return mechanism, procurement method, performance appraisal, and supervision system.