Integration of Water Management and Urban Design for Climate Resilient Cities | chapter publication in new Climate Resilient Urban Areas book

How can cities transform in face of the climate crisis? An interdisciplinairy new book has been published: Climate Resilient Urban Areas: Governance, design and development in coastal delta cities. Under editorship of Rutger de Graaf, this book contains contributions by researchers and practitioners from different countries. The Climate Resilient Urban Areas book is part of the Palgrave Studies in Climate Resilient Societies [Robert Brears (Ed.)]. Very honoured and proud I was given the opportunity to make a contribution to this book by writing chapter [2] on:

"Integration of water management and urban design for climate resilient cities".

Urban design can play a key role in addressing a wide range of climate-related water challenges such as water pollution, water scarcity, floods, land subsidence, storm water management, ecosystem services and public health. Both in urban retrofit projects as well as new urban development integration of water management in the different phases of design and development is important. Design and planning approaches such as water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) provide useful tools for strengthening the integration of water in spatial planning and urban design processes, requiring any spatial intervention or new development to be evaluated on opportunities for sustainability and innovation. WSUD focuses on the integration of the natural environment and sustainable technology in planning for urban water, combining hydrology, landscape architecture and sociology. The chapter concludes with recommendations on how cities can build on their own experience and lessons from practical cases to achieve more water-sensitive urban design.

Figure: Linking the water assignment (or required storage capacity) to the ecological services metrics [example of New Orleans, USA]

Keywords: #BlueGreenInfrastructure #BGI #ClimateAdaptation #UrbanPlanning #WaterManagement #WaterSensitiveUrbanDesign #WSUD

The content of this chapter is dear to me and builds on (1) merging of my educations in Water Management (Delft University of Technology) and in Landscape Architecture (Amsterdam Academy of Architecture), [2] my international experience as a leading expert in bridging engineering and planning of urban deltas, and [3] my annual Water Sensitive Urban Design guest lecture (from 2012) at Wageningen University & Research as part of the international Planning and Design of Urban Space course [ETE-33806].