UPLanD - Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental Design
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Hydraulic risk in urban area. Community and memories in historical centre of Acireale
Full text linkThe mainstream approach to environmental risk analysis uses probabilistic tools and mathematical models to evaluate the possibility that a given event will occur and its magnitude. This approach does not take into account the complexity of the socio-economic system omitting the uncertainties that result from the deep relationship between human, society and the environment. Risk assessment requires other contributions able to express and use the complexity not as a limit but as an opportunity. These contributions should be able to integrate traditional and qualitative approaches. Informal dialogues and life stories are useful to know community perceptions and territorial subjectivity in order to create a more complex image of the territory and to increase the awareness of the risk. This paper aims to illustrate the ongoing experience in Acireale, where a participatory process on the assessment and prevention of flood risks in urban areas has been started. The first part of the process was intended to rebuild the collective image of risk. Afterwards a collective experience of service learning has tried to transform these analysis into project. Questions are still many: could this process be a codified form? What are difficulties and opportunities of such a process? How does this influence the redesign of the city and community behaviors
Green buildings and water management in Harare, Zimbabwe
Full text linkGreen buildings are structures that use environmentally responsible and resource-efficient materials throughout a building’s life-cycle from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and the final demolition. Buildings consume more than twenty percent of the world’s available water. The study adopted a qualitative research design to analyse water use in buildings that are owned by Old Mutual Properties in Harare, Zimbabwe. Data were collected through structured and unstructured interviews and observation. Grey water treatment and low flow plumbing fixtures provide opportunities for industry to build high tech, low water demand projects. On average, applying water-efficient designs and products lead to less water and energy use, and a reduction in operating costs. Increased government regulation and the desire to lower energy costs are expected to drive a faster adoption of water efficient products such as ultra-low flush toilets and low-flow shower heads. The use of non-sewage and grey water for onsite uses such as site irrigation will minimize demands on the local water resources in Harare in particular and the entire country in general
Assessment of urban regeneration activities in the central area of Jos town, Nigeria
Full text linkThis paper examines land use changes and urban regeneration activities in the central area of Jos, Nigeria; the processes and forces driving those changes. The central area has been expanding into adjacent streets over the past nearly two decades due to increased pressure for commercial and retail space resulting from the fire incident that burnt the Jos Main Market in February 2002 and increase in the urban population. The research employed positivist and interpretivist approaches, where qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data. Land use changes were analyzed from satellite images and maps while questionnaires were administered to property owners and shoppers. The study area covers an area of about 183.37 hectares. Regeneration activities have increased during the period under study with private-sector-led activities accounting for 668 of a total of 797 properties (about 84% ) and covering an area of 59 hectares (about 41% of the land area). Though the processes of change are unstoppable, even desirable; these have created a number of problems such as inner city congestion due inadequate parking space, illegal motor parks and the proliferation of commercial activities unto the adjacent streets and pedestrian walkways; inadequate utilities/services; poor waste collection and management practices and a degraded urban environment. Urban regeneration was proceeding in a piecemeal and uncoordinated manner without overall planning vision towards achieving clear socio-economic and environmental objectives and bereft of community values of enhancing public safety and security
Regional policies for sustainable water management and impacts on municipal planning
Full text linkEnvironmental protection issues are gaining increasing relevance in the framework of regional and local planning. The protection and enhancement of ecological networks is one of the most significant factors, in connection with sustainable urban water management.Several countries are revising their planning systems, in order to translate into practice the principles of ecological sustainability. An overview of iconic examples of river ecosystem restoration within some of the most populous European urban areas showed how river restoration could give the spur to urban rehabilitation programs, giving the opportunity to increase urban quality.This paper presents Campania regional policies regarding water protection and sustainable water management, and their influence on Provincial and Municipal planning practice, using as case study a group of fourteen municipalities located within one the most critical river basins, i.e. Sarno Valley. A research carried out by the University of Naples Federico II investigated the effects of water protection policies on municipal plans in Campania Region. The study showed that, roughly fifteen years after the regional legislative reform of 2004, the renewal rate of urban plans a is still low. A deeper analysis of local planning state of the art, carried out through local plan collection and comparison, interviews and review of municipal databases, underlined the poor consideration put on sustainable water management by local planners
The urban pressure on Italian river areas
Full text linkRivers have been the hub of economic and social development in the human evolution, because they are essential resources for: agricultural development, infrastructure networks and development of the first urban strategies. Territory has had a radical transformation that led to a national average urbanization of about 10%; but this development has happened with different degrees of awareness and without uniform models and criteria.One of the main causes of this is due to an extreme fragmentation of planning, because the municipalities’ plans are a binding power modality, in force in Italy, but they don’t have significant and strategic references at regional and territorial scale. In particular, the Italian river areas have undergone a real siege by urban growth, outlining a critical scenario in terms of risks for the population and for the natural system.Some disciplines such as landscape ecology have contributed substantially to the integration of some environmental issues that have led into greater consideration for the protection of the landscape. In the same way the concept of Ecosystem Services combines knowledge, techniques and legislation to achieve the goal of sustainable planning. So, it is necessary that these scientific disciplines, which deal with environmental planning in various ways, find the right devices to guarantee a multi-criteria approach to the problem of consumption of the Natural Capital
Water landscapes: from risk management to a urban regeneration strategy
Full text linkThis contribution is inserted in the discourse related to the climate change issues, which implies the need of identifying new and environmentally sustainable urban shapes through actions of reconnection and reconfiguration of the morphological and environmental components, within the broader strategies of urban regeneration and resilience.In particular, the main topic of this contribution, is related to the urban contexts, which are currently affected by flooding phenomena in their coastal areas due to the progressive sea level rise, for which the recovery of safety condition is linked to the environmental dimension of the matter. This state of affairs, questions some structural limitations of the existent urban shapes, and it suggests a change of perspective, where cities and territories must be rethought, assuming water as an element generating the identity of a new urban shape.In this scenario, the experience coming from the Danish cities of Vejle and Aalborg is hereby presented, because of their capacity to have transformed the “calamitous” event of flooding in a proper strategy of urban regeneration which finds its strength in the exploitation of the identity potentials of the maritime landscape
Rising coast adaptation : The Vietri sul Mare case study
Full text linkThe objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the anthropized environment has adjusted to the morphology of Vietri’s territory. It is not by coincidence that the title of this paper highlights the predominant morphological feature of the landscape: the coastline. In the first place, the analysis of Vietri sul Mare territory has been carried out in all its dimensions (morphological, hydrographical, agronomical, historical and anthropic) in order to define the possible strategies of coexistence of the natural and the anthropic environment. In 1954, the extraordinary flooding of Bonea river caused the derangement of the neighbourhoods of Marina and Molina, in addition to the loss of many human lives. The present work has identified the criticalities connected to the landscape (alluvial cones, areas at risk of landslides and floods) that, together with the construction of a canal system and the concrete covering of a long stretch of the river, have caused the loss of the river/population relationship.Defence and landscape valorisation strategies have been mapped out for each of the four areas that have been identified in the first place
Urban Water Management 2.0: a review
Full text linkSoil, landscape, water, air, biodiversity, climate: in many areas of the planet the degradation degree of such resources requires a virtuous process of reconversion, regeneration and, in some cases, de-urbanization. Recent research on Mediterranean metropolitan areas has shown, in fact, that de-urbanization constitutes a need that is now an essential requirement of these territories. Where to find necessary financial resources? The North European examples of urban renewing, from the Bo01 of Malmö to the Hammarby Sjöstad of Stockholm, from the London GMV to the Vauban of Friborg, show that the response to housing problems constitutes a privileged catalyst for innovative environmental and social policies on an urban scale. Indeed, they demonstrate that urban planning has the potential to find in itself the financial sources necessary to reverse the processes of ecological degeneration that have affected cities.Some authors believe also that it is too late for an approach limited in preventing new land take and environmental impacts. Furthermore, they think we need widespread building substitutions and the technological adaptation of the infrastructural system. High density would seem to lend itself to become a criterion for the design of such interventions. But high density also needs for an efficient urban water management in order to face both: the increased soil sealing and the increase in rains intensity, that is an effect of climate change.In this contribute, introducing next issue of UPLanD, we focus on upgrading the WSUD approach toward a planning scale one, usually referred as Water Sensitive Urban Planning
Italian land cadastral cartographic representation of public waters for a contribution to territorial governance: learning from history
Full text linkThe process of formation and conservation of cadastral cartography for cadastral land system has always been an unavoidable defense of knowledge of the territories, albeit oriented to the imposition control. Also the hydrographic network, as well as, the road network and toponymy of streets and paths, have constituted in the cadastral representation frame elements for the geometrical-particle metric, articulating, with connotations also of civilistic nature , the juridical-ownership structures of the waters, both in terms of “domination” and of possible uses for a wide area technical reproduction support by cadastral representation. Finally, cadastral representation of public waters and road network allows diachronic analysis for prevention & control and risk assessment (danger scenarios). This cross sectional survey article is directly cured by author as CePSU provincial wide areas coordinator by so called “Crossing Borders Narrative”
Building the resilient city. Strategies and tools for the city masterplan
Full text linkUrban risks and climate change mitigation and adaptation, are new challenges for enhancing the city resilience. City planning plays a fundamental role to cope with these challenges in new settlements design and urban renewal actions, taking into account the socio-ecological complexity of the city.Catchment hydrologic response is influenced by several factors including land use choices and policy tools. Understanding potential effects of urban development is the basis for the implementation of storm‐water control planning actions, along with appropriate mitigation and compensatory measures at the catchment scale.This paper presents a land use planning experience conducted by the University of Catania (Lapta Lab). The focus is on the role of municipal land use planning, a key element of the resilient city.The settlement system of city of Avola, in Sicily, is illustrated as well as the natural characteristics of the site, relevant for the hydrologic response. The main steps of the planning process are described, in order to explain how urban resilience issues were practically addressed.The case presented stimulate several considerations about water sensitive urban planning and the opportunities for the inclusion of nature based solutions, such as sustainable urban drainage systems and regulating services, in land-use planning processes