China

China's road network is quickly expanding and the number of new drivers is growing rapidly, increasing the need to improve the road safety of new and existing road projects... Show More + and traffic schemes. Road safety audits, when systematically implemented by a qualified and independent audit team, can drastically increase road safety and reduce the number and seriousness of car accidents at a low cost to benefit ratio. This note reviews the specific role of road safety audits, international experience and practices, and specific recommendations for improving the use of road safety audits in China. The success of a road safety audit and its results in terms of reducing the number and impact of car accidents depends for a very large part on the qualifications and technical capacity of the audit team. The establishments of comprehensive national standard and provincial policies for road safety audits, training on road safety audits, along with an accreditation system for auditors are necessary for mainstreaming road safety audits in China. In addition to problems in the design of a new project, changes during project construction can also lead to a degradation of safety when the effects of those changes are not fully analyzed. Finally, a new project may also inadvertently increase hazards on adjacent roads. Show Less -

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate substantially exceeded China's population growth, which averaged 1.4 percent annually between 1978 and 2009, and real GDP per... Show More + capita accordingly grew at 8.6 percent annually during this period. China's urban population resides primarily in city districts (shiqu) and town districts (zhenqu), which constitute the urban core of larger administrative units called cities (shi) and respectively towns (zhen). Cities and towns in China are expansive regions, with administrative territories much larger than in the rest of the world (Chan 2007). Cities are conceptually equivalent to counties in the U.S. and thus the whole of China's territory is basically covered by 287 prefecture and provincial level municipalities, which within their area include 654 city districts - the cities proper in the conventional sense of this word - and 19,322 towns. Each town in turn includes a town district - an urban core that occupies a fraction of the town's area but accounts for most of the town's urban population. While cities and towns as a whole overlap in their administrative boundaries, with multiple towns nested within each city, city districts and town districts are disjoint structures, being urban embryos within the administrative boundaries of territorially larger cities and towns. The main purpose of this study is to examine the development and features of town districts (zhenqu) - the urbanized core of China's towns. Show Less -

This document summarizes the environmental impact assessment of the World Bank financed Yan'an Water Supply Project (YWSP), highlighting the main issues and conclusions... Show More + of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environment Management Plan (EMP) for YWSP. The development objective of the project is to enhance the water security in Yan'an City by increasing the water supply. The project is intended to help address this challenge and enhance the water supply security in the Baota District, where urban area of Yan'an City is located, to benefit 154,000 households in this area who will receive water from the existing and the proposed water supply. Yan'an will use the Yellow River as the water source since the smaller rivers in the area have either insufficient flow or inadequate water quality to supply the core city and the urban areas in the surrounding counties. Show Less -

This paper reports on the survey undertaken by the Center for Rural Development Policy of the China Agricultural University, with the support of the World Bank, and... Show More + UNFAO. It provides input as to how rural land registration systems might be used, and as a potential and timely input into the design of large-scale piloting exercises. The field survey, carried out in townships and villages in Anhui and Shandong provinces, was based upon a series of interviews with individual rural households, and structured discussions with focus groups, which included government officials and other stakeholders. The findings of this survey show an increasing trend in rural land transactions, land disputes, and a consensus on the need for a registration system. The report provides recommendations and policy advice in the following sections: Section 1 presents a summary of the findings of the focus group discussions, while Section 2 provides a summary of the findings from the interviews with individual farmer households. Section 3 attempts to place these findings in the broader national context and draw conclusions and recommendations. Annexes, including the lists of discussion topics and template questionnaires, are provided at the end of the paper. Show Less -

The World Bank's road safety partnership with the Government of China (GOC) is maturing at a time when a deeper awareness of the negative development impacts of road... Show More + crashes in low and middle-income countries coincides with the shift in road safety management policies and practices in leading high-income countries which are becoming focused on the elimination of road deaths and serious injuries, rather than accepting them as human failure and the inevitable price of economic progress. This shift in results focus is also aligned with other sustainable development initiatives addressing environmental, energy and public health goals, which present significant opportunities to capture the co-benefits of harmonized initiatives. For these reasons the World Bank and GOC agreed to review the situation in China and prepare a new road safety engagement strategy. The proposed strategy aims to facilitate an accelerated transfer of road safety knowledge and scaling up of investment at national, provincial and city levels to rapidly improve China's road safety performance, with an emphasis on strengthening national lead agency functions and multisectoral coordination arrangements. It also aims to promote China's regional and global leadership role over the coming decade and draw upon the innovative services of international partners through the World Bank's global networks and road safety investment experience. The need for a designated agency to lead and coordinate the delivery of activities under the new engagement strategy was highlighted. Several candidate agencies were considered and in particular the State Administration for Work Safety (SAWS) was identified as being well placed and ready to take responsibility for this task.This report summarizes the review findings and presents them in an operational framework specified in the form of a project concept encompassing all activities proposed under the new engagement strategy. It then outlines the steps to be taken to finalize the project concept before detailed preparation for its implementation can commence. Show Less -

This document summarizes the environment impact assessment of the Harbin-Jiamusi (HaJia hereafter) Railway Project in China, highlighting the main issues and conclusions... Show More + of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environment Management Plan (EMP) of the project. The development objective of the project is to respond to existing and anticipated transport demand along the Harbin-Jiamusi corridor by providing increased capacity, faster travels time and increased frequency of services for passengers, and increased capacity for freight. This project includes the construction of a new double track, electrified, passenger dedicated high-speed railway line of about 342 km and related stations between the cities of Harbin and Jiamusi. The project is located in the Heilongjiang province in north-east China. Eight new stations will be constructed along the line. The East Jiamusi station will be reconstructed and the existing Jiamusi station will be upgraded on site. About 30 km of line will be rehabilitated along the main line and several auxiliary project components are included to connect HaJia railway to the major stations at Harbin and Jiamusi. The project includes the related civil works, goods, land acquisition and resettlement, rolling stock, and consulting services. The construction of the HaJia line is planned to start in 2011 with commissioning expected by December 2015. Show Less -

This document is an executive summary of the environmental impact assessment and environmental management plan documents for the Kunming Urban Rail Project. Kunming... Show More + Urban Rail Project (Transit Line three) is located in Kunming city, capital city of Yunnan province in southwest China. The line is an east-west backbone line in the Kunming urban rail transit planning network. It starts from Shizui station in the west of Kunming, traverses through the urban core area via tunnel and ends at Eastern Passenger Terminal in the east. The project will have significant positive environmental and social impact by promoting mass public transportation which in turn alleviating urban traffic, reducing environmental pollution related to vehicle emission and traffic congestion, and improving urban life quality. Show Less -

This document summarizes the environment impact assessment of the Ningxia Highway Project in China, highlighting the main issues and conclusions of the Environment Impact... Show More + Assessment (EIA), Environment Management Plan (EMP), and Environmental Safeguards Framework (ESF) of the project. The EIA and EMP reports cover the Guyaozi-Qingtongxia Expressway (GQE) roadway, service areas, tolls, and all construction related infrastructure such as access roads, workers' camps, borrow pits and disposal sites. As designed, the project: (i) incorporated effective analysis of alternatives and engineering measures to maximize project benefits and minimize negative impacts that will have occurred; (ii) will not adversely affect or convert any critical natural habitats; (ii) will not adversely affect resources of high cultural value; (iii) will have minimized the need for resettlement and will provide adequate and just compensation and income restoration for affected peoples; and (iv) includes a management plan for addressing environmental and social issues during construction and operation of the project. Show Less -

The Status of Projects in Execution (SOPE) report for FY09 provides information on all International Bank and Rural Development (IBRD)/International Development Association... Show More + (IDA) projects that were active on June 30, 2009. The report is intended to bridge the gap in information available to the public between the project appraisal document, disclosed after the Bank approves a project, and the implementation completion report, disclosed after the project closes. In addition to the project progress description, the FY09 SOPE report contains project level comparisons of disbursement estimates and actual disbursements, and a table showing the loan/credit/grant amount and disbursements to date for all active projects. Show Less -

The Status of Projects in Execution (SOPE) report for FY08 provides information on all International Bank and Rural Development (IBRD)/International Development Association... Show More + (IDA) projects that were active on June 30, 2008. The report is intended to bridge the gap in information available to the public between the project appraisal document, disclosed after the Bank approves a project, and the implementation completion report, disclosed after the project closes. In addition to the project progress description, the FY08 SOPE report contains project level comparisons of disbursement estimates and actual disbursements, and a table showing the loan/credit/grant amount and disbursements to date for all active projects. Show Less -