This book advocates a more thoughtful approach to urban water management. The approach involves reducing water consumption, harvesting rainwater, recycling rainwater and adopting Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) where surface water is not sent straight to drains but is intercepted by features like green roofs, rain gardens, swales and ponds.Cities in particular need to change the existing linear model of water consumption and use to a more circular one in order to survive. The Water Sensitive City brings together the various specialised technical discussions that have been continuing for some time into a volume that is more accessible to designers (engineers and architects), urban planners and managers, and policymakers.
Autorentext
Gary Grant is a Chartered Environmentalist, Member of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, an Academician at the Academy of Urbanism, Member of the All Party Parliamentary Committee on Biodiversity, thesis supervisor at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London, Chair of the Judges of the Integrated Habitats Design Competition and Director of the Green Roof Consultancy Ltd. After graduating from Nottingham University in 1980 with a degree in Biology, he worked for the London Wildlife Trust (LWT), campaigning for and managing urban wildspace. He conceived the London Wildlife Garden Centre which won a RIBA/Times Award. Later he led the Wildlife in Docklands Project, a joint venture between the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust and LWT, which promoted nature as part of the redevelopment of London's Docklands. In the early 1990s he participated in the Royal Fine Art Commission's River Thames Study and worked on the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Garden. From the early 1990s he has designed green roofs, including the CUE Building at the Horniman Museum. Based in Hong Kong during the much of the 1990s, he worked on housing, tourism and infrastructure projects. In 2003, Gary wrote English Nature's Research Report on green roofs and followed that in 2006 with Green Roofs and Facades published by BRE Press. From 2006 to 2009 he was a Director of EDAW and then AECOM Design + Planning, where he worked on large scale planning projects including the London 2012 Olympic Park, the Bedford Valley River Park, the Whitehill-Bordon Eco Town, Education City, Qatar and Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi.
Klappentext
This book sets out a path for a sustainable relationship between cities and water and brings together theory, practical application and case studies.
Water is essential for life but is taken for granted. It's now becoming clear that the Victorian approach to urban water will not solve problems associated with growing population, migration of people to cities and climate change.
The current use of water by cities is unsustainable. Cities in particular need to change the existing linear model of water consumption and use to a more circular one in order to survive. Aquifers all over the world, including some that have taken millions of years to form, are predicted to dry up in the coming decades. Reservoirs like Lake Mead near Las Vegas, once believed to have permanently solved water supply problems, are falling to dangerously low levels.
In The Water Sensitive City, the author advocates a more thoughtful approach to urban water management, including for example, exponents of the Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) approach in Australia and Low Impact Development in the US.
This new approach involves reducing water consumption, harvesting rainwater, recycling rainwater and adopting Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) where surface water is not sent straight to drains but is intercepted by features like green roofs, rain gardens, swales and ponds. This conserves water, reduces flooding, cleans water - and therefore streams, rivers and seas and is compatible with the greener city and green infrastructure agendas, developed by policy makers worldwide to make cities more liveable.
Urban water management can no longer be left to the specialists; it must be addressed by today's designers (engineers, architects and landscape architects); urban planners and managers; as well as by environmental managers and policymakers.
Inhalt
About the Author xiii
Acknowledgement xv
1. Water and Cities 1
The Molecule 1
Blue Planet 1
A Global Water Cycle 2
Terrain and Water 2
Seasons and Cycles 4
Variations in Rainfall 4
Changing Climates 5
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide 5
Fossil Fuels and Growth 6
The Ancients and Water 6
Dams 7
Limits 7
Sanitation 9
Pollution 9
Urban Drainage 10
Potable Water 12
Waste 12
Rainwater Harvesting 13
Recycling 14
Biodiversity 14
Restoration 15
The Future 16
Privatization and Regulation 16
Coordination and Cooperation 17
Towards a Better Future 18
2. A Brief History of Water Supply and Sanitation 19
Genesis 19
Bronze Age 20
The First Aqueducts 20
Nineveh 21
The Nile 21
The Minoans 22
Pompeii 23
Byzantium 24
Yucatan 24
The Incas 25
Qi 26
Lijiang 26
Medieval and Early Modern Europe 26
Early Victorian Period 27
Germ Theory 27
The Great Stink 28
Modern Sewers and Sewage Treatment 28
Sewage Treatment Refined 29
Standards for Sewage Treatment 29
Birmingham Corporation Water Act 1892 30
Los Angeles and the Owens Valley 30
3. Demand 33
Basic Needs 33
Personal Consumption 34
Water Footprint 35
Dependency 36
China 36
Germany 36
India 37
Indonesia 37
Spain 38
United Kingdom 38
Water Footprint of Products 38
Meat 39
Vegetable Crops 39
Power Plants 40
Steel 41
Mining, Oil and Gas 42
When Will Water Consumption Peak? 42
4. Supply 43
The Roof of the World 43
Mountains 44
Forests 45
Reservoirs 46
Impacts of Dams 46
Lowland Rivers 47
Licensing Abstraction 48
Aquifers 48
Nitrate 49
Overabstraction 49
Desalination 50
Reverse Osmosis 50
Impacts of Desalination 51
High Cost of Desalination 51
Rainwater Harvesting 51
Pressure and Pumps 52
Pipework 52
Reliant on Rain 53
5. Climate Change and Water 55
Climate Changes 55
The Greenhouse Effect 55
Callendar 56
Keeling 57
Atmosphere and Oceans 57
Details of the Carbon Cycle 57
The IPCC 58
Stern and the Financial Crisis 58
400 ppm Breached 59
Two Degrees 59
Sea Level Rises 60
Coastal Cities 61
Warmer Seas 62
Ice 62
Feedback Loops 62
Ocean Chemistry 63
Snowmelt 63
Models and Projections 65
Summer Storms 66
Heat Waves 66
Drought 66
6. Microclimate 69
Climate 69
Microclimate 69
City Microclimates 70
Urban Heat-Island Effect 70
Smog 70
Solving the Air-Pollution Problem 71
Cooler Roofs 72
Living Walls 73
Trees Cool Streets 74
Parks 75
Quality of Green Space 75
Locating Trees 76
Water Bodies 76
Rivers 76
Heat-Related Deaths 77
Energy Savings 78
An Overwhelming Case 79
7. Ecosystem Approach 81
The Great Acceleration 81
The Convention on Biological Diversity 81
Ecosystem Approach 82
Ecosystems 82
Principles of the Ecosystem Approach 83
Operational Guidance 85
Ecosystem Appr…