Identification and Pre-Assessment of Former Watercourses to Support Urban Stormwater Management

Abstract

The application of blue and green infrastructure in urban stormwater management has attracted increasing interest in recent years. At the same time, one can observe a heavy modification of urban watercourses by land reclamation measures aiming at canalizing, straightening, and draining existing water systems at many places around the world. In the context of sustainable urban development, the question arises, whether the reactivation of former watercourses could be an additional option to support urban stormwater management. This article introduces a process to identify former watercourses and to pre-assess their suitability to support urban stormwater management considering different hydraulic functionalities and stormwater related criteria. To prove the practicability of the approach, it was applied in a case study. Our investigations revealed that the reactivation of former watercourses can provide additional opportunities towards more nature-based and sustainable stormwater management in the urban fabric.

Urban Green Infrastructure and Sustainable Development: A Review

“…Most quantitative documents (62) focused on spatial analysis. They are papers that use mapping through GIS or remote sensing to describe and analyze topics such as landscape connectivity (e.g., Niedźwiecka-Filipiak et al [37]), urban sprawl (e.g., Gavrilidis et al [38]), assessing urban heat island (e.g., Marando et al [39]), water management (e.g., Wong et al; Kuller et al [40,41]) and related subjects.…”

“…It is also recommended to increase research relating to UGI characteristics and people s perception (e.g., Fischer and Kowarik [61]), as the ultimate goal of studying and applying results of UGI and SD research is to provide a better quality of life for the beneficiaries, inhabitants and visitors of urban zones, and contribute to regional and global improvements of ecosystem services and SD. In fact, among the documents approaching with quantitative metrics the study of UGI and SD, 27 of them estimate the values of variables such as watercourse suitability (e.g., Simperler et al [62]) and urban foraging impact on human health and well-being (e.g., Fischer and Kowarik [61]). Additionally, 8 of them (e.g., Hamann et al [63]) used cost-benefit analysis in their articles to estimate the value of UGI.…”