Pilots

European Cooperation in support of Weihai city

Background and objective

Weihai city is located at the eastern end of Shandong Peninsula, bordering the Yellow Sea in the north, east and south. it is an important marine industry and coastal tourism city. It is the Chinese mainland city closest to Tokyo, Japan and Seoul, Korea. Rushan city is under Weihai administration, which is located in the hinterland of Qingdao, Weihai and Yantai, with a coastline of 199.27km. The marine ecological and coastline environment have an extremely important impact to the city and vice versa. EC-link provided Technical Assistance to Weihai and helped develop and document a number of coastal restoration projects in Rushan city. These projects aimed at improving the coastal areas’ environment and enhance resilience to marine disasters.

Three major restoration projects received EC-link‘s assistance to develop pre-feasibility studies. The study results assist the city to apply for finance from the Shandong Green Development Fund for a total investment of 562million CNY. The projects are all located in Rushan city, the three projects are:

  • Haiyangsuo Town Eastern Coastline Ecological Restoration Project;
  • Haiyangsuo Town Southern Coastline Ecological Restoration Project; and
  • Baishakou- to- Shangdong Coastline Ecological Restoration Project.

Critical environmental issues are addressed by the implementation of the project. Due to increasing offshore aquaculture and development activities, the coastal ecological environment in the project area has been damaged due to environmentally inappropriate activities and practices. These have seriously changed and in some cases destroyed the structure and natural appearance of the coastline. They affected the natural ecology and landscape of the coastal zone, weakening local ecosystem functioning.

These projects constitute a very good example of a Climate Change Adaptation project. The project implementation will increase the protection to coastal area and surrounding residents. As estimated 120,000 people in the town and surrounding region will be impacted by the project, and half million of Rushan population will be indirect beneficiaries.

Project approach & progress

EC-Link provided Technical Support to Rushan costal restoration projects, which helped the project development and increased its bankability through a Pre-feasibility study process. EC-Link team made the projects accessible to the green financing resources and steered the project preparation to meet specific requirements of Shandong Green Development Fund. The detail Technical Support included: a) identification and prioritizing the potential projects for Green Finance, b) developing the projects to maximise green impact and to document this impact so as to meet the eligibility criteria of downstream green financing, through rigorously documenting the results of the Pre-Feasibility Study; and c) providing trainings on Municipal Green Finance and Project Pre-feasibility Study, for stakeholder capacity building.

Highlights

funded by

supported by

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Mohurd

Implemented by

contact

Martin Hofmann

Head of Cluster

Sustainable Transition – Infrastructure & Cities, Mobility, Energy, Environment & Circular Economy
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH