<p>London aims to build more than half a million households over the next 10 years to cope with the growing demand for housing in the UK. In this future scenario, urban water security levels will be threatened due to new development pressures combined with the climate emergency and exponential population growth in the city. In addition to this, there is a lack of agreement between the policy and decision-making sectors to decide what can be accepted as a sustainable urban development project and which are the physical and decision boundaries inside the city (i.e., while boroughs and wastewater zones present decision boundaries, new urban developments have physical boundaries only). In our previous work, we developed a new concept for urban Water Neutrality (WN) inside an operational framework called CityPlan to frame the concerns about rising water stresses in cities. This framework integrates spatial data with an integrated urban water management model, enabling urban design at systems level and delivering a new index that assesses possible future scenarios. Despite several studies related to WN, little evidence is yet available in the literature of how urban water neutrality can be achieved at different urban scales and if results might vary depending on the scale studied.</p><p>In this work, we expand the CityPlan framework and present an innovative evaluation approach that sets several urban indicators to be tested at different urban scales. As part of the evaluation toolkit of CityPlan, we also develop the Water Efficiency Certificate (WEC) by boroughs using two novel criteria: the Housing Age Indicator (HAI) and the Device Efficiency Score (DES). The WEC evaluates the current situation of household water consumption and can be used to support predictions of water consumption under different scenarios, to study the potential for retrofitting existing residential buildings, and to develop water-efficient households. In the end, the full development of the CityPlan framework will provide a clear vision to contextualise water neutrality in urban water systems and its key role in urban water security at different urban scales.</p>
The climate emergency and population growth are challenging water security and sustainable urban design in cities worldwide. Sustainable urban development is crucial to minimise pressures on the natural environment and on existing urban infrastructure systems, including water, energy, and land. These pressures are particularly evident in London, which is considered highly vulnerable to water shortages and floods and where there has been a historical shortage of housing. However, the impacts of urban growth on environmental management and protection are complex and difficult to evaluate. In addition, there is a disconnection between the policy and decision-making processes as to what comprises a sustainable urban development project. Here we present a systems-based Urban Planning Sustainability Framework (UPSUF) that integrates sustainability evaluation, design solutions and planning system process. One of the features of this master planning framework is the spatial representation of the urban development in a Geographical Information System to create an operational link between design solutions and evaluation metrics. UPSUF moves from an initial baseline scenario to a sustainable urban development design, incorporating the requirements of governance and regulatory bodies, as well as those of the end-users. It evaluates the impact on the built and the natural environments through the concept of urban ecosystem services, and makes the This is a pre-print of manuscript submitted for peer-review at Sustainable Cities and Society journal 2 process for sustainable design more accurate and reliable. Ultimately, UPSUF has the potential to facilitate partnership and constructive dialogue between the public and the private sectors.
<p>Cities are open living systems, which rely on the confluence of multiple layers of infrastructure and corresponding services. The interaction among these components is made even more complex by the demands of businesses and governments, together with constraints arising from ecological and environmental considerations. Climate change-related phenomena are putting an enormous strain on cities&#8217; infrastructure, basic services, human livelihoods, public health and well-being. In many parts of the world concerns mount in regard to the scarcity of resources and growing risk of natural disasters (heat waves, urban flooding, droughts).&#160; The converse also holds true, cities are major contributors to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions, notwithstanding other sources of pollution. This, together with the increase in urban growth and urbanization, results in an expansion of urban hazards - including water pollution, disease spread and issues with food security. Despite these pressing issues, we are witnessing an almost paradoxical mismatch between the needs of future cities and the practices currently used in numerous urban projects. A wholesale re-thinking of existing urban design methods at systems level (Systemic Design), is therefore not only necessary, but also provides significant opportunities to explore critical aspects of Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) and systematic assessment of possible future scenarios of different scales (local, urban, regional&#8230;). Nature-based solutions (NBS) are at the very core of the conception and development of BGI and provide a range of ecosystem services including alleviation of flood risk, mitigation of climatic effects, increase in biodiversity and amenity values, improvements in water quality, and further, rather more intangible benefits related to the residents&#8217; health and wellbeing.</p><p>In this work we provide a systemic design as an innovative and integrated approach, based on ecology and ecological design, which introduces the systematic context analysis (environmental, climatic, historic&#8230;). &#160;A GIS-based mapping of the context, produced in relation to the functional purpose, can give us synthetic prospects to better understand the potential effectiveness of BGI solutions (design options) in relation to their wider ecosystem. The systemic design approach allows an examination of possible steps to reduce actual cities vulnerability and to explore the main drivers of urban development, climate change mitigation and urban resilience. In this way, the systemic design approach also supports decisions for further planning and anticipates actions for the management of the multifaceted hazards of the entire urban system.</p>
<p>Climate change-related phenomena are putting an enormous strain on cities&#8217; infrastructure, human livelihoods, public health and citizens well-being. This, together with the increase in urban growth and urbanization, results in an expansion of urban hazards - including water scarcity, disease transmission and consequent social issues.</p> <p>To address this complexity in an urban design context we introduce a Systemic Design (SyD) framework for Multifunctional Nature-based Solutions (NBS) to rethink and contribute to the planet&#8217;s health and people&#8217;s quality of life. The SyD approach focuses on context knowledge creation (environmental, climatic, social&#8230;) that includes perspectives from the point of view of multiple stakeholders, maps its key features, and analyses alternatives for exploiting different design options. Exploratory or suitability modelling supports all these steps.</p> <p>The examples here presented are part of the multidisciplinary project euPOLIS focused on climate change adaptation and on enhancement of public health and citizen&#8217;s well-being through the implementation of nature-based solutions (NBS). Although diversity of the size and the scale of presented case studies, the systematic baseline analysis have revealed that there are several shared conditions, such as an immediate need for improvement of existing green spaces, mitigation of direct and indirect UHI effect and refinement of maintenance systems.</p> <p>A mapping of the local features, and variety of specific spatial and social conditions in public spaces studied in euPOLIS&#8217;s Cities (Belgrade, Gladsaxe, Lodz and Pireas) gives synthetic prospects to better understand the potential effectiveness of Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) solutions (design options) in relation to their wider ecosystem and citizens&#8217; concerns.&#160; This leads to a systematic assessment of possible future scenarios of different scales (local, urban, regional&#8230;) and allows an examination of possible steps to better define locally specific variables, evaluation and validation of benefits to reduce existing vulnerability, and to improve community&#8217;s liveability.&#160; The systemic design approach allows to explore the main drivers of urban development, climate change mitigation and urban resilience. In this way, it also supports decisions for further planning stages and anticipates actions for the management of the multifaceted hazards of the entire urban system.</p>
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.