Beijing Plans New Airport as ‘Sponge Airport’

The Chinese capital has been in the process of building a massive new airport for the past three years. Scheduled to open its gates in 2019, the Beijing Daxing International Airport will be equipped to receive a traffic of 72 million passengers per year, though the airport’s capacity will be stretched well beyond this figure in subsequent years, surpassing the 100 million passengers/year threshold in the long run. At the 54th Conference of Directors General of Civil Aviation in Asia and the Pacific Region on August 7-11, Chinese representatives announced plans to employ a 100% green design for the new Daxing airport. Their objective is to apply the “sponge city” concept, currently being implemented in many cities across China, into the airport’s infrastructure. The “sponge” aspect would enhance the airport’s drainage system, allowing it to store, filtrate, and purify rainwater, reutilising the processed water when needed. Moreover, the airport will not only set a benchmark for hydro-ecology and water management, but all buildings and structures will also be constructed to be energy-efficient, using renewable energy, minimising waste, and reducing other negative environmental impacts. To the document...