Exiting the north gate of Xi'an North Railway Station and looking northeast, about 2 kilometers away on the flat ground, a circular hill rises abruptly — this is the Wenjing Mountain Park currently under construction. Previously, this was the ancient course of the Wei River, dotted with over 40 sand pits of various sizes. Through the backfilling of construction waste to create the hill, a beautiful man-made landscape has been formed.
“The largest sand pit was about 400,000 cubic meters, and the smallest was around 70,000 to 80,000 cubic meters. Some pits had groundwater seeping out two meters deep, with wild grass growing taller than a person around them — it was truly wasteland that could not be turned into arable land,” said an official from the Xi'an Municipal Bureau of Gardens when describing the former state of the Wenjing Mountain Park area.
On October 17, 2010, Dong Jun, then executive vice mayor of Xi'an, convened a meeting and proposed transporting construction waste generated during the construction of the North Railway Station and some nearby construction waste to fill the sand pits, thereby creating a hill and building a park. Then-Mayor Chen Baogen attached great importance to the idea, and later it was decided that the municipal government would invest 280 million yuan, attract 70 million yuan in investment, and build Wenjing Mountain Park. The park is 13 kilometers from the city center, borders Shangyuan Road to the south, backs onto the Caoyun Mingqu Canal, and covers an area of 439.5 acres in a triangular shape. It is expected to be completed within this year and will be open to the public for free.
On February 22, the technical director of the Wenjing Mountain Park construction project team said that the hill at Wenjing Mountain Park covers an area of more than 150,000 square meters, approximately 225 acres, and was originally planned to accommodate 3.32 million cubic meters of construction waste, with a total volume equivalent to 2.42 times that of the Han City Lake reservoir (which has a capacity of 1.37 million cubic meters). Currently, all the construction waste generated during the construction of the North Railway Station has been used up. The hill-building work is still ongoing, and greening construction has already begun in the areas where the hill has been formed.
Compaction is carried out every time the fill is raised by half a meter
According to the plan, Wenjing Mountain Park will feature four peaks, with heights of 32 meters, 42 meters, 42 meters, and 55 meters respectively. The slopes are equipped with hiking steps connecting the various peaks. Next to the main peak, an observation tower will be built — a three-story, square-shaped tower modeled after Han Dynasty architecture, standing 22 meters tall. This tower is a permanent structure and will become a new landmark in northern Xi'an. To the south of Wenjing Mountain, an artificial wetland will be constructed. The park will also include more than ten pavilions, along with restrooms, resting shelters, children’s playgrounds, green mazes, fitness plazas, and more. Upon completion, the vegetation coverage rate will reach 72%, with over 200 types of plants introduced, including large trees, sub-trees, shrubs, and fruit trees.
During the construction of Wenjing Mountain Park, the construction waste was crushed into pieces with diameters of less than 20 centimeters and compacted using impact rollers. Compaction was performed every time the fill was raised by half a meter, ensuring the density of the hill. According to monitoring by the Deformation Monitoring Center of the Xi'an Institute of Surveying and Mapping, Wenjing Mountain Park has had minimal impact on the surrounding environment.
It is understood that the first province in northwest China to use waste for hill-building was Ningxia, with a park called Lanshan Park. Wenjing Mountain Park is the second case in the northwest region of using construction waste to create a park, and the first in Shaanxi Province, providing a new approach to construction waste management.