Living Water Garden — Chengdu's Park-Scale Constructed Wetland Teaching River Clean-Up (China)

The Living Water Garden opened in 1998 as part of Chengdu's five-year Fu and Nan Rivers Comprehensive Revitalization Project. Designed by environmental artist Betsy Damon with landscape architect Margie Ruddick, and built with staff of the Fu-Nan Rivers Restoration Bureau, the 2.4 ha (5.9 acre) park is shaped like a fish.
River water is diverted through a sequence of ponds, flowform aeration pools and planted beds before returning to the river. Keepers of the Waters reports about 200 cubic metres of polluted river water treated per day, and describes the output as clean enough to drink.
The operators themselves state that this volume is not enough to affect overall river water quality; the park's purpose is demonstration, education and inspiration, and it influenced later urban water-treatment parks.
Caveats: no pollutant-removal percentages, water-quality measurements, operating costs or independent performance verification were found, so the treatment claims are self-reported. It is included as a modest, honestly-scoped educational model rather than a proven river remediation.

Read the full analysis: https://www.keepersofthewaters.org/living-water-garden