This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Sponge Cities: Emerging Approaches, Challenges and Opportunities" that was published in Water

Sponge Cities: Emerging Approaches, Challenges and Opportunities.

In 2014, China initiated its national action plan for sponge city development aiming to tackle urban water and environmental challenges. Since then, numerous projects have been implemented across 30 pilot cities and beyond in China through two development stages. The sponge city development, based on a systematic approach of “source reduction, process control, and systematic remediation”, adopts comprehensive technical measures of “infiltration, detention, retention, purification, utilization and discharge”, and coordinates the different aspects of water quantity and quality, ecology and safety, centralized and decentralized, green and grey, landscape and function, on-shore and off-shore, surface and underground, etc. It aims to control urban runoff effectively, to minimize the impacts of urban development and construction activities on the natural hydrological characteristics and ecological environment, and to enable the city’s resilience like a “sponge” to adapt to environmental changes and natural disasters. This assessment standard for sponge city effects published by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of P.R. China is an attempt to provide guidance on the assessment of the effects of sponge city development projects and the city development as a whole. The main technical contents of this standard include: 1) general provisions; 2) terms and symbols; 3) basic requirements; 4) assessment items and 5) assessment methods. The publication of the English version of the Chinese assessment standard aims to provide non-Chinese readers an insight into what objectives are to be achieved through sponge city development and how sponge city projects are evaluated in China.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue The Challenges of Water Management and Governance in Cities that was published in Water

This book features expert contributions on key sustainability aspects of urban water management in Chinese agglomerations. Both technical and institutional pathways to sustainable urban water management are developed on the basis of a broad, interdisciplinary problem analysis.

Smart, Resilient and Transition Cities: Emerging Approaches and Tools for Climate-Sensitive Urban Development starts with a presentation of three widespread Urban Metaphors, which are gaining increasing attention from urban planners and decision-makers: Smart City, Resilient City and Transition Towns, being all of them focused on the need for enhancing cities' capacities to cope with the multiple and heterogeneous challenges threatening contemporary cities and their future development and, above all, with climate issues. Then, the Authors provide an overview of current large-scale and urban strategies to counterbalance climate change so far undertaken in different geographical contexts (Europe, United States, China, Africa and Australia), shedding light on the different approaches, on the different weights assigned to mitigation and adaptation issues as well as on the main barriers hindering their effectiveness and translation into measurable outcomes. Opportunities and criticalities arising from the rich, 'sprawled' and 'blurred' landscape of current strategies and initiatives in the face of climate change pave the way to a discussion on the lessons learnt from current initiatives and provide new hints for developing integrated climate strategies, capable to guide planners and decision makers towards a climate sensitive urban development Smart, Resilient and Transition Cities: Emerging Approaches and Tools for Climate-Sensitive Urban Development merges a scientific approach with a pragmatic one. Through a case study approach, the Authors explore strengths and weaknesses of institutional and informal practices to foreshadow innovative paths for an adaptive process of urban governance in the face of climate change. The book guides the reader along new governance paths, characterized by continuous learning and close cooperation and communication among different actors and stakeholders and, in so doing, helps them to overcome current 'siloed' approaches to climate issues. - Links resilience, smart growth, low-carbon urbanism, climate-friendly cities, sustainable development and transition cities, being all these concepts crucial to improve effective climate policies - Includes a number of case studies showing how cities, different in size, geographical, cultural and economic contexts are currently dealing with climate issues, grasping synergies and commonalities arising from current institutional practices and transition initiatives - Provides strategic and operative guidelines to overcome barriers and critical issues emerging from current practices, promoting cross-sectoral approaches to counterbalance climate change

This book provides an overview of the typical nature-based solutions (NBS) used for flood mitigation at different scales and in different areas (e.g. from catchment to hillslope scale; from urban to coastal areas). NBS can provide several ecosystem services, such as water regulation and water quality enhancement, and as such offer relevant technical solutions to complement typical grey infrastructures to mitigate flood hazard and water quality problems. In recent years, political awareness and interest from the scientific community have led to increasing implementation of NBS worldwide. In light of this trend, this book provides valuable insights into the environmental aspects of NBS, particularly their effectiveness for flood and pollution mitigation, and discusses socio-economic aspects related to the implementation of NBS, including regulatory aspects, cost, and citizens’ perceptions of NBS. Compiling the latest research, the book furthers our understanding of the role of NBS for flood mitigation and its relation to environmental aspects, to guide scientists and stakeholders in future NBS projects. It is intended for the scientific community and stakeholders, such as spatial planners and landscape managers. Chapter "Nature-based solutions for flood mitigation and resilience in urban areas" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.