This perspective examines the July 2025 chikungunya fever outbreak in Guangdong Province as a sentinel event exposing a practical gap in climate-resilient urban design. As of July 26, 2025, Guangdong had reported 4,824 confirmed cases, 98.5% in Foshan City and most concentrated in Shunde District. Although sponge-city green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) strengthens urban flood resilience, its detention and retention features can also generate cryptic, hard-to-inspect water habitats that sustain Aedes mosquito breeding under hot, humid conditions when post-storm dry-down and maintenance fall short. This perspective synthesizes outbreak context, China’s sponge-city evaluation metrics, and vector-ecology thresholds to define a vector-proofing gap: prevailing sponge-city guidance excels in hydrological performance but typically lacks explicit, measurable constraints on water residence time and inspectability tied directly to vector risk. An operational vector-proofing framework is proposed that 1) translates entomological risk into engineering indicators (e.g., post-storm dry-down within 48–72 hours where feasible, access/inspectability, and trigger-based maintenance), 2) embeds vector impact assessment across the project lifecycle, and 3) clarifies cross-sector responsibilities among housing/urban–rural development, water resources, and health agencies. Aligning hydrological and entomological objectives can reduce the likelihood that climate adaptation investments inadvertently shift risk from flooding to arboviral transmission.
Yu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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