Elucidation of sustainable development paradigm focusing on urban rivers as natural infrastructure (Case study: Restoration of Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul)

Today, the sustainable development and lasting interaction between man-made environments and nature have attracted interest in urban management. As part of the natural ecosystem of cities, urban rivers are a natural infrastructure with the multidimensional and flexible nature that can facilitate sustainable development if they adhere to management and design principles in the restoration process. However, in cases such as the restoration project of the historic river of Cheonggyecheon, as a result of aligning with the propaganda and political goals of urban management, the process of restoring natural streams has strayed from the path of sustainable development and will not be successful in the long run. This project was intended to improve the environmental and cultural quality in the central region of Seoul and subsequently, to promote the international image of the city. It has always been the subject of evaluation and controversy that existed before the start of project and are still ongoing.The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the paradigm of natural stream restoration with a sustainable development approach, so that the necessary management and design measures for utilizing the capabilities of the urban river act as infrastructure and development tools. The research is performed by the qualitative method as a case study. Initially, the model is defined by the library collection method and the restoration project of Cheonggyecheon River is evaluated based on the model. This study shows that the ecological goals in the Cheonggyecheon restoration project are merely adopted based on the principles of sustainable development to justify the plan and are overshadowed by the political goals and motivations of urban managers. This led the project to a one-dimensional atomistic approach in the design phase that allowed only a superficial layer of naturalism to capture the public mind. In this restoration project, by not adopting the management approaches and sustainable design, the role of the river remained limited to an artificial green infrastructure providing municipal services. In this way, the failure to use the river as a dynamic and living organism did not provide a sustainable landscape for Seoul in this specific location.

Keywords:

Sustainable Development , Natural Infrastructure , Urban River , Sustainable Landscape , Seoul.