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BETTESWORTHConstruction
Fish Tail Park

How Nanchang’s Fish Tail Park Turned a Damaged Fishpond into a Flood-Ready Floating Forest

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Fish Tail Park in Nanchang, Jiangxi, is a 55.6-hectare public wetland built on a former fish-farming and coal-ash site. Its “floating forest” is not a floating island: it is a field of planted islets and flood-adapted landforms inside a lake, designed to accept monsoon water, improve urban runoff, restore habitat and provide routes for walking and cycling.

What Fish Tail Park is

Turenscape’s project, titled A Floating Forest: Fish Tail Park in Nanchang City, was designed in June 2017. The Cultural Landscape Foundation describes the site as transformed in 2017–2018 by Kongjian Yu and Turenscape. It occupies 55.6 hectares in Nanchang, Jiangxi, on the Yangtze River floodplain.

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The “floating forest” name describes the way trees and other vegetation occupy islands that can be surrounded or partly covered by changing lake levels. The park itself does not literally float. It is a constructed landscape whose landform, planting and paths are intended to work with seasonal inundation rather than exclude water with a rigid edge.

The American Society of Landscape Architects’ 2025 awards page describes the degraded landscape as 126 acres. That area is approximately consistent with Turenscape’s 55.6-hectare figure, but the two measurements should remain attributed to their respective sources.

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Why the site needed a new landscape

Before redevelopment, the area had been used for fish farming and coal-ash dumping. Turenscape’s project accounts describe poor soils, compacted clay-like ground, polluted pond water and a coal-ash zone. Those descriptions are the project team’s account of site conditions; they are not a current, independently measured contamination or water-quality survey.

The challenge was therefore larger than adding planting to an existing park. The design had to reuse damaged ground, create reliable wetland habitat, manage stormwater entering a floodplain and still make room for people. A conventional park with a uniformly dry lawn would have been vulnerable to monsoon water and would have lost the ecological value of shallow water, mudflats and seasonal flooding.

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Reusing coal ash and fishpond material

Turenscape says coal ash from the site was recycled and mixed with soil excavated from fishpond dykes to form numerous islets. This approach turns two liabilities—waste material and spoil from the former ponds—into the basic material for a new topography. The resulting islands are not decorative objects placed on a finished lake; they are part of the lake’s flood-management and habitat structure.

The Chinese project profile describes a sequence of ecological islands, mudflats, retained field features, planting and paths. Some central areas were deliberately left without visitor paths so birds could use them with less disturbance. That separation of quiet habitat and more intensively used edges is a key planning decision: public access is concentrated where it causes less conflict with nesting and feeding areas.

How the landform handles monsoon water

The lake and its islands were planned for a large change in water level. Turenscape’s project profile states that the lake can accommodate a two-metre rise and one million cubic metres of stormwater inflow. These are designer-stated parameters and intended functions, not independent performance monitoring.

The central forest is intended to be submerged during annual monsoon floods. Instead of treating that condition as a failure, the design allows the water forest to flood and recover. The peripheral waterfront is arranged for recreation and is described by Turenscape as designed for a 20-year flood. Terraced constructed wetlands along the edges are intended to filter urban runoff before it moves through the lake system.

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Ye Kaisong, identified by Economic Daily as the Turenscape project lead, explained the approach in a translated quotation: “We designed with this issue fully in mind, leaving space for rainwater during the park’s landform shaping and building islands according to local conditions and terrain, allowing it to flood the water forest.” The statement describes the design idea, not a guarantee that every island remains accessible in every storm.

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Published water-storage figures are not identical

Different sources publish different capacities. They may refer to different parts of the system or use different definitions, so they should not be combined into one number.

Figure Source and date What it represents
Two metres of water-level rise Turenscape project profile, accessed 2026 Stated design allowance for lake-level change
One million cubic metres Turenscape project profile, accessed 2026 Stated capacity for stormwater inflow
882,000 cubic metres Economic Daily, 2023, republished by China’s State Forestry and Grassland Administration Published storage figure for the project
50,000 cubic metres per day Turenscape’s Chinese project profile Described project water-purification function, not an independently verified current result

The one-million-cubic-metre and 882,000-cubic-metre figures should therefore be reported with their sources rather than presented as a reconciled total.

Planting the “forest” for changing water levels

Plant selection follows the hydrology. Turenscape describes trees chosen to tolerate fluctuating water levels, wetland plants along shorelines and island edges, and lotus providing cover across parts of the lake. The planting is intended to create several moisture zones rather than one uniform planting bed: trees and shrubs on higher islets, emergent and wetland species at the margins, and open water or mudflat where seasonal conditions permit.

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This layered structure supports the park’s habitat objective. Islands provide nesting and resting locations, shallow margins support aquatic organisms, and mudflats can become feeding areas as water levels fall. The project profile also describes retaining some existing field features, which helps the new landscape read as a transformation of the former working site rather than a completely artificial garden.

Leaving some central areas pathless is as important as planting them. A wetland can lose much of its value if visitors, dogs, bicycles and maintenance traffic pass through every habitat zone. Fish Tail Park’s design concentrates circulation around the perimeter and selected viewing points while keeping quieter ecological islands less accessible.

How people use the public edge

The park combines habitat with a public route network. Economic Daily’s 2023 report gives 8.7 kilometres of slow-mobility routes and 3.1 kilometres of greenway. The Chinese project profile describes a ring route for walking and cycling, viewing and shelter structures, sports space and park services.

These facilities are arranged primarily around the waterfront and outer portions of the site. That produces a usable everyday park without requiring a path across every island. It also gives visitors changing views of the planted islets, open water and floodplain while preserving lower-disturbance zones inside the wetland.

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Access is seasonal. The 2023 report refers to paths or sections being temporarily inundated during heavy flooding. That is evidence that water can reach circulation areas as intended; it is not current operating guidance. Opening hours, admission fees, route closures and present visitor rules have not been established in the available project information.

Water treatment as part of the landscape

Fish Tail Park is intended to handle water quality as well as water quantity. Terraced constructed wetlands are described as filtering urban runoff. The Chinese project profile says the project function includes purifying 50,000 cubic metres of water daily. Because this is a project-profile description, it should not be read as a current independently verified treatment rate.

Economic Daily’s 2023 report describes water brought from Aixi Lake as improving from Class IV to Class III through the treatment sequence. That is a reported result using the source’s water-classification wording and should be attributed to that report rather than generalized to all water in the park or to present conditions.

The design logic is often summarized by Ye Kaisong’s translated phrase, “Green spaces and wetlands are the best sponges.” In practical terms, the park uses soil, vegetation, shallow water, terraces and storage volume together. It is not a single treatment machine: performance depends on inflow quality, sediment, maintenance, vegetation health and the timing and intensity of floods.

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What the project demonstrates for construction and urban planning

Remediation can be structural, not cosmetic

On a damaged site, remediation does not have to end with a flat cap and ornamental planting. Fish Tail Park uses recovered coal ash and fishpond-dyke soil to create the landform that controls water movement and supports habitat. Any project applying this idea elsewhere would still need site-specific testing, approvals and engineering controls; the park’s material reuse is a documented design approach, not a universal recipe for handling contaminated material.

Flood storage can be designed into public space

The lake, islands and wetland terraces reserve space for water while producing a park people can use in ordinary conditions. The central forest’s intended seasonal submergence shows that not every landscape element needs to remain dry year-round. Higher, more accessible edges can carry everyday recreation while lower habitat areas accept water.

Circulation can protect habitat

A ring route, greenway and viewing structures provide public access without forcing paths through every ecological island. Designers evaluating similar work should ask where visitors are concentrated, which areas remain quiet, how maintenance vehicles move and what happens when floodwater reaches a path.

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How to evaluate the published claims

Fish Tail Park is widely described through design intentions and project reporting. A careful assessment should distinguish those statements from independent, long-term monitoring. Useful questions include:

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  • Does the measured storage volume match the stated design allowance, and are the one-million-cubic-metre and 882,000-cubic-metre figures measuring the same thing?
  • How often do water levels reach the central forest, and how quickly do planted areas recover?
  • What are inflow and outflow water-quality measurements over multiple seasons, rather than a single reported classification change?
  • Which bird and aquatic species use the islands, and does visitor pressure alter that use?
  • How often are paths closed, repaired or rerouted after floods?

The available project descriptions establish the intended functions and several reported figures. They do not establish a complete current performance dataset.

Recognition and professional context

The American Society of Landscape Architects’ 2025 professional awards page lists Fish Tail Park as a degraded 126-acre floodplain transformed for stormwater management, habitat restoration and recreation. Turenscape’s project page lists 2022 AZ Awards landscape-architecture and people’s-choice environmental-leadership recognition, the 2022 Architecture MasterPrize Design of the Year and other awards. Award categories and dates should be checked against each awarding organization if a formal citation is required.

Recognition helps explain why the project is studied, but it does not replace evidence about present water quality, maintenance or visitor operations.

What visitors should confirm before going

Current opening hours, fees, entrance points, accessibility provisions and closure rules are not established by the available information. The 2023 report’s mention of temporary flooding closures should not be treated as a current timetable. Check official local notices before travelling, especially during the monsoon season.

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Useful literal search terms include “A Floating Forest: Fish Tail Park in Nanchang City,” “Nanchang Fish Tail Park” and the Chinese name “南昌鱼尾洲湿地公园.”

How to compare Fish Tail Park with another wetland project

A fair comparison needs common definitions rather than a simple ranking. Use the following axes:

  • Flood storage: compare the measured or designed volume and explain whether it covers the lake, wetlands or the entire catchment.
  • Seasonal inundation: identify which zones are expected to flood and whether access routes remain usable.
  • Water treatment: distinguish design capacity from monitored inflow and outflow results.
  • Habitat and access: record the area reserved for wildlife, the route length and how disturbance is controlled.
  • Site reuse: describe what contaminated soil, ash or former infrastructure was retained, treated or removed.
  • Recreation: compare walking and cycling routes, viewing facilities, sports space and actual operating rules.

Bottom line

Fish Tail Park’s achievement is the conversion of a damaged fishpond and coal-ash landscape into a flood-adapted public wetland. Its planted islets, seasonal forest, constructed wetlands and perimeter routes treat water, habitat and recreation as one landform system. The strongest claims are design parameters and reported project outcomes, not a substitute for independent current monitoring; the park is best understood as a carefully engineered landscape that makes room for monsoon water instead of pretending the floodplain can be kept permanently dry.

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