The Tongzhou section of the Xiaotaihou River was upgraded and restored, and 60,000 square meters of "underwater forest" was planted in the thousand-year-old river channel.

The Tongzhou section of the Xiao Empress River completed the upgrading and restoration project. Photo by Tang Jian

After more than a year of restoration and landscape improvement, the Tongzhou section of the Xiaotaihou River has formed a 60,000-square-meter "underwater forest". The two sides of the river have also built tens of meters wide ecological river management experience area and Caoyun culture exhibition area, becoming an urban green corridor intertwined with history and culture and modern landscape in the sub-center of the city.

　　The ancient Xiao Taihou River Wharf Ruins Park is located at the corner of the Beijing-Harbin Expressway and the Xiao Taihou River. Today, the park is surrounded by grass and ribbons of flowers on the gentle slopes. Not far away, the river is clear and the bottom is visible. The tens of meters wide channel suddenly widened two or three times, forming a shallow bay of more than 6,000 square meters.

　　Excavated in the Liao Dynasty, the Xiao Taihou River is the earliest artificial canal in Beijing and has a history of 1,000 years. It originates from Longtan Lake, reaches the West Dawang Road Fangcheng Nullah, crosses Chaoyang, and leads to the sub-center of Beijing, with a total length of 24 kilometers.

　　In previous years, due to the direct discharge of domestic sewage from a large number of production, the Xiaohou River suffered serious pollution and was once called "Milk River". In 2016, the Chaoyang section of the Xiao taihou River was started to be treated, and all the sewage outlets along the line were blocked, and the ecology of the river was systematically restored. In 2020, the Tongzhou section of the Xiaotaihou River launched an upgrading and restoration project, through measures such as promoting flow and greening, increasing flexibility and reducing rigidity, to create a safe river and an ecological river, forming a naturally restored and organically regulated river. Yuan Jie of Beijing Bitong Taima Water Environmental Treatment Co., Ltd., the construction party, said that when designing, the green plants and engineering means were combined to bid farewell to the cement banks, and both sides of the river were ecological revetments, with a total length of 4510 meters. On the one hand, ecological revetment ensures the safety of flood drainage in the river, and on the other hand, as part of the living river ecosystem, it is naturally connected with the river.

　　At the same time, the water ecological restoration work with "underwater forest" as the core is launched, and a complete and stable ecosystem is formed by building a submerged vegetation system, an aquatic animal system such as fish snail shellfish and the microbial flora of the water body, making full use of the advantages of the self-purification ability of the ecosystem, fundamentally solving the problems of "water clarity" and "water beauty" of landscape water bodies, and creating natural ecological waterscapes. Nowadays, the construction of the "underwater forest" of xiao tai hou river has achieved results. In the next step, 10 solar aeration devices will be set up in the river to help improve the self-purification capacity of the water body.

　　The improvement of the Xiao taihou River should not only achieve clear water and green shores, but also create beautiful and deep ecological corridors. To this end, 30 meters of green belts have been built on both sides of the Tongzhou section of the Xiao taihou River to create a colorful waterfront with evergreen in four seasons and flowers in three seasons. At present, the project has been completed and is open to the public free of charge.

Source Beijing Daily

Correspondent Feng Weijing

Process Editor Wu Yue

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