News from Hubei provincial environment department is that a general plan has been worked out for the ecological construction and environmental protection of a city cluster and more than CNY500 billion will be invested to build this eco-city cluster, which is to be centered on Wuhan.
The plan classifies the ecological function of the Wuhan city cluster with three defining lines: a red line represents a strict protection area, a yellow line means a limited protection and utilization area, and a green line stands for a development and construction area.
The city cluster will take eight major roles including making environment plans and setting environmental areas, setting environmental protection access standards, and planning on urban environmental infrastructure.
The construction of the city cluster, involving 459 environment programs and a total investment of CNY512.8 billion, will last for ten years and will be completed in 2020. The investment will be spent mainly on ecological restoration, clean energy, energy conservation and emission reduction, recycling, and ecological safety.
According to the plan, nine cities in the cluster will be built into model environment protection cities and by 2020, an ecological city cluster will be formally set up as the first of its kind in China.
