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| The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. A water feature in the heart of a city will enhance the micro-climate and reduce heat island effect. Photograph: Murdo Macleod |
"For too long we have been designing water out of our cities when we should have been designing it in
Sue Illman
Guardian Professional,
Friday 19 April 2013
In March this year, the Mayor of London and RoDMA
announced a tender to create the UK's largest floating village in
London's Royal Docks, on an area one and a half times the size of Green
Park. Planners in Norwich, meanwhile, will be scrutinising plans
submitted earlier this year for a rain square
and flood park that aims to create 670 homes and new public spaces on a
flood-prone site at the juncture of the Wensum and Yare rivers.
As
long as we want to keep developing in low-lying areas, particularly
around our tidal rivers and coasts, then creating whole settlements that
rise and fall as the water
ebbs and flows is a perfectly legitimate solution. The Dutch – the
ultimate early adopters when it comes to water – already boast examples
such as Amsterdam's pioneering Ijburg community.
But for the majority of people living in urban centres, floating
villages aren't the future. In fact, they often obscure what we really
need to be focusing on when we think about the relationship between our cities and water.
Those who visited Ecobuild
this year had the opportunity to hear Professor Tony Wong, chief
executive of the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities,
talking about the steady progression up the agenda of water sensitive urban design
(WSUD) in Australia. Successive years of flooding and some of the worst
droughts in recorded history – which have not only threatened the
health and wellbeing of the population but very nearly brought industry
grinding to a halt – have prompted the Australian government to think
differently about water.
The result has been a huge shift in
mindset that has seen WSUD enshrined in planning and policy responses to
climate change, and an acceptance that tackling flooding and drought
doesn't have to be in isolation to creating liveable cities. A water
feature in the heart of a city, for example, will enhance the
micro-climate and reduce heat island effect, while whole productive landscapes can be supported by waste-water recycling.
A new report, Water Sensitive Urban Design in the UK,
published by the CIRIA in March, reinterprets the WSUD concept for the
UK and its conclusions might best be summed up simply as: for too long,
we have been designing water out of our cities when we should have been
designing it in. The introduction to the report sets out the challenge
we face: "Water shortages, flooding and watercourse pollution are all
signs of stress where developed areas have a troubled interaction with
the natural water cycle and where, conversely, water has become a risk
or a nuisance rather than an asset or an opportunity."
The evidence has been stacking up for some time. Flooding in 2012 caused the biggest insurance industry losses since 2007, when 13 people were killed and more than £3bn of water damage claims were filed. According to Defra, an estimated 5m properties in England
alone are at risk of flooding – and their owners will be left even more
vulnerable if the Association of British Insurers agreement to insure
properties in high-risk areas is not renewed after July 2013. This isn't
just about flooding either: 27% of water bodies in England do not meet European water quality standards, while 20 million customers in the UK experienced hosepipe bans in the 2012 to limit stress on water resources.
A survey of built environment
professionals conducted as part of the report showed that 83% of
respondents believe water management is considered too late in the
planning and design process of developments. We have to start
prioritising all elements of the water cycle when designing and
developing new places. We can start by looking beyond the idea that a
pipe in the ground is the best option for getting rid of rainwater. This
is a 19th-century solution that is neither the best nor only solution
to a growing 21st-century problem. Instead, we need a better
understanding of the economics that allow soft-planted or bio-engineered
drainage schemes to cost less while enhancing land values.
We already know, for example, that sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) – the creation of ponds, wetlands, swales
and basins that mimic natural drainage – can be a cost-effective way to
prevent surface flooding while creating valuable public amenities. But
we need to go further than SuDS and start joining the dots between flood
risk management and water resource management, and start putting water
at the heart of discussions about what makes places great to live.
This
is what we mean when we talk about WSUD, a process of looking at how,
for example, we could be holding on to more of our flood water for reuse
in meeting demand for drinkable water, while at the same time taking
the pressure off existing infrastructure by reducing the amount of water
entering the sewers. And a fundamental part of a water sensitive city
is that we integrate the design of those features into the fabric of our
towns and cities as attractive livable landscapes.
WSUD can be
applied at all scales, from a single house to an entire city, and it can
be retrofitted to existing developments as well as built in from the
start. What we need are policies that see this thinking being adopted in
every local plan and a commitment from the government to a
comprehensive water management programme for the UK.
Sue Illman is president of the Landscape Institute,
which published Green Infrastructure: An integrated approach to land
use about the benefits green infrastructure can bring by creating
multifunctional landscapes."
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