Xiangtan, PRC
Building a City’s Digital Backbone
7 digital systems managed under one platform
Inhabitants 2.88 million GDP per capita $11,371 Geographic area 5,015 km²
THE CHALLENGE While digital solutions can hold great potential for climate action, if they are implemented in a siloed approach across different city departments, they may not be used to their maximum potential.
Co-benefits Environmental
With a range of smart city initiatives underway to help Xiangtan take action on climate change, the city is also in the process of building an overarching digital system to help manage all of them coherently. Xiangtan is introducing a whole host of low-carbon initiatives throughout different sectors, many of which either rely on, or have been created in collaboration with, digital tools. To facilitate the management and interoperability of the different systems, the city is also creating an overarching ICT system. The new system will have an open and scalable architecture to allow further expansion and integration of sector-specific digital platforms, and will allow data sharing, verification, authentication, and security management. The citywide ICT system in Xiangtan will integrate intelligent transport, smart bus information, building energy management, industrial energy and utility management, early flood warning, and environmental monitoring and analysis systems. The Xiangtan smart digital platforms will allow for better data gathering that would inform low-carbon behaviors and practices. It is hoped that the digital architecture will allow more synergies across the city, combining multisector data from separate platforms. In this way, it should also allow greater collaboration among different city departments and improve the efficiency of decision making, especially when it comes to reducing disaster vulnerability. ADB provided a loan to cover the $16 million cost for the citywide ICT platform, which is part of ADB’s $150 million loan for the Xiangtan Low-Carbon Transformation Project.
The citywide ICT system will result in better city planning and improved disaster response to minimize environmental impact and reduced vulnerabilities. Economic A citywide ICT platform is a better way of managing digital information to deliver and manage better performing assets, on time and on budget.
70 100 CLIMATE ACTIONS FROM CITIES IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Integrated digital solutions. Xiangtan is bringing seven ICT systems under a singular, overarching management system (photo by Fang Yang).
