Mark Merkelbach was a keynote speaker at the 2016 International Symposium on Planning and Construction and Engineering Technologies Application of the China Sponge Cities in the City of Hangzhou. A majority of the attendees were landscape architects. Note to China: civil engineers are equally important in developing stormwater management tools and are needed to properly size and design facilities to ensure project performance goals are met. The Sponge City idea needs to be a collaborative approach that will require a multidiscipline team to be successful.

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Following this conference, Mark Merkelbach and John Lenth (Herrera) were guest lecturers at the Green Infrastructure Research Center, School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan. We discussed our Sponge City hydraulic analysis approach followed by stormwater tool selection for city scale implementation.

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