Climate change and urbanization will increase the frequency and magnitude of urban flooding and water quality problems in many regions of the world. In coastal and delta areas like The Netherlands and the Philippines, where urbanization is often high, there has been an increase in the adoption of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS). SUDS are installed around the world with the expectation to reduce urban flooding and reduce the pollution impact on receiving waters. Most cities in Asia are starting to implement SUDS as their strategy to make their cities sustainable and resilient.The combination of SUDS with appropriate wastewater treatment and management systems have the potential to be multifunctional in alleviating flood run-off, improving water quality, alleviating heat stress and as a source for reusing the stormwater and wastewater.Since the earliest SUDS are implemented in Europe decades ago it is advised to use the lessons learnt in this process. International knowledge exchange is promoted in projects as IWASTO where several organisations from the Philippines and The Netherlands join forces on a specific region as the Pateros riverin Manila with the aim to minimise the pollution impact on this receiving water. The first findings of this project related to storm water and wastewater management are presented in this paper. In this stage of the project high level support models that map the challenges in the city (such as flooding and heatstress) arevaluable tools for implementing cost effective sustainable drainage for improving water quality.
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Stormwaters, flowing into storm sewers, are known to significantly increase the annual pollutant loads entering urban receiving waters and this results in significant degradation of the receiving water quality. Knowledge of the characteristics of stormwater pollution enables urban planners to incorporate the most appropriate stormwater management strategies to mitigate the effects of stormwater pollution on downstream receiving waters. This requires detailed information on stormwater quality, such as pollutant types, sediment particle size distributions, and how soluble pollutants and heavy metals attach themselves to sediment particles. This study monitored stormwater pollution levels at over 150 locations throughout the Netherlands. The monitoring has been ongoing for nearly 15 years and a total of 7,652 individual events have been monitored to date. This makes the database the largest stormwater quality database in Europe. The study compared the results to those presented in contemporary international stormwater quality research literature. The study found that the pollution levels at many of the Dutch test sites did not meet the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) and Dutch Water Quality Standards. Results of the study are presented and recommendations are made on how to improve water quality with the implementation of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) devices.
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Storm sewers are known to significantly contribute to annual pollutant loads to receiving water bodies. The storm sewers of the city of Almere discharge the stormwater of 1384 ha of impervious area via 700 storm sewer outfalls (SSOs) to the local receiving water system. This water system suffers from eutrophication and long term build-up of pollutant levels in the sediment bed. In order to be able to select the most effective stormwater management strategy, the municipality of Almere and Water Authority Zuiderzeeland have launched a 2 year extensive monitoring project to measure the stormwater quality and the potential impact of source control and end of pipe measures to decrease the emission via SSOs. Source control measures, such as removal of illicit connections and increasing the cleaning frequency of gully pots showed to be most effective. The potential impact of end of pipesolutions based on settling showed to be very limited due to the low settleability of solids in the storm water of Almere at the SSOs.
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from the article: Abstract Based on a review of recent literature, this paper addresses the question of how urban planners can steer urban environmental quality, given the fact that it is multidimensional in character, is assessed largely in subjective terms and varies across time. The paper explores three questions that are at the core of planning and designing cities: ‘quality of what?’, ‘quality for whom?’ and ‘quality at what time?’ and illustrates the dilemmas that urban planners face in answering these questions. The three questions provide a novel framework that offers urban planners perspectives for action in finding their way out of the dilemmas identified. Rather than further detailing the exact nature of urban quality, these perspectives call for an approach to urban planning that is integrated, participative and adaptive. ; ; sustainable urban development; trade-offs; quality dimensions
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De Noordwaard is a recently established highwater flow area located near the Brabantse Biesbosch. In this area, dykes have been adapted and creeks have been dug, some of which are connected to the Hollands Diep and are subject to tidal influence. A large part of theagricultural land has been transformed into a flow area with nature as a secondary function and is partly grazed by water buffaloes, koniks, Scottish highlanders and sheep. In order to guarantee the flow of the area at high water on the Merwede, additional mowing managementis carried out in addition to grazing in autumn. To this end, all vegetation is reset to the maximum height that has been set as astandard for safety reasons. This mowing is expensive and sometimes contrary to the nature objective in the area, where a great diversity in structures is sought.
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From the article : "Based on a review of recent literature, this paper addresses the question of how urban planners can steer urban environmental quality, given the fact that it ismultidimensional in character, is assessed largely in subjective terms and varies across time. A novel perspective of urban environmental quality is proposed, simultaneously exploring three questions that are at the core of planning and designing cities: ‘quality of what?’, ‘quality for whom?’ and ‘quality at what time?’. The dilemmas that urban planners face in answering these questions are illustrated using secondary material. This approach provides perspectives for action. Rather than further detailing the exact nature of urban quality, it calls for sustainable urban environmental quality planning that is integrated, participative and adaptive" ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ) DOI: 10.1002/eet.1759 - Preprint available for free download.
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Malmö is well known within the field of urban hydrology, as the city was a pioneer in integrated water management (Stahre 2008). In 1998 the Augustenborg neighbourhood was refurbished due to its reoccurring problems with flooding anddamage caused by water (Niemczynowicz 1999). The project “Ekostaden” (Eco-city) included many initiatives implementing nature-based solutions (NBS), such as swales and rain gardens for infiltrating surface (storm) water into the ground (Climate Adapt 2016) (Figure 1). International stakeholders want to know if these NBS still function satisfactorily after 20 years and what we can learn from the “Augustenborg strategy” and apply in other parts of the world. To quote the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, “we learn from history that we do not learn from history.” Augustenborg is an ideal location to demonstratethe sustainability of NBS, test the functionality for infiltration of surface water in swales, map the build-up of potential toxic elements (PTE), and test the water quality after 20 years operation. This evaluation is done in 2019 with theinternational, participatory and multidisciplinary method ‘ClimateCafé and the results are presented at the international seminar Cities, rain and risk,June 2019 in Malmö (Boogaard et al. 2019). ClimateCafé is a field education concept involving different fields of science and practice for capacity building in climate change adaptation. Over 20 ClimateCafés have already been carriedout around the globe (Africa, Asia, Europe), where different tools and methods have been demonstrated to evaluate climate adaptation. The 25th edition of ClimateCafé took place in Malmö, Sweden, in June 2019 and focussed on the Eco-city of Augustenborg. The main research question - “Are the NBS in Augustenborg still functioning satisfactorily?”- was answered by interviews, collecting data of water quality, pollution, NBS and heat stress mapping, and measuring infiltration rates (Boogaard et al. 2020).
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The research presented in this thesis has highlighted (bio)geochemical, hydrological, and wetland ecological processes that interact and enhance ecosystem development on wetlands built on fine sediment. A combination of greenhouse and laboratory experiments were conducted. Some measured data from these experiments formed important input for subsequent analysis in a modeling environment. The findings presented in Chapters 2-6 can be divided into four topics: 1) Plant–soil interactions in the terrestrial zone, 2) wetland–terrestrial processes influencing nutrient availability in the land–water zone, 3) effects of plants on sediment consolidation in the terrestrial zone, and 4) effects of bioturbation on nutrient availability in the aquatic zone. The next sections give a summary of the results for these four topics. The last section summarizes the recommendations formulated for the Marker Wadden project.
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De Nederlandse kust dreigt haar open en landschappelijke karakter te verliezen door de bouw van steeds meer vakantieparken. Betrokken gemeenten en provincies hebben samen met ondernemers, natuur- en milieuorganisaties en waterschappen afgelopen februari in een Kustpact toegezegd dat er buiten gebouwd gebied en bestaande projecten geen nieuwe recreatieve bebouwing mag komen. Maar projecten in de pijplijn gaan gewoon door.
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