Urban resilience
Disasters, climate change, and rapid urbanization pose a serious risk to the provision of urban water services including safe drinking water, sanitation, and safe drainage. Urban growth increases the risk for disasters because it often limits drainage capacity, while at the same time it increases pressure on urban water systems, especially affecting the poor. Thus, humanity is faced with serious challenges to achieve sustainable urban water management in light of growing risks.
Climate change affects urban areas by increasing water scarcity and floods, salinization of groundwater and increasing needs for green spaces for flood mitigation, shade and cooling. These different impacts and their solutions are interrelated, for example urban flooding can be mitigated by increasing green areas that also increase coolness. The complexity of the urban water system requires that it is approached in an integrated way. However, the urban water system is made up of multiple water networks, or sectors, that are often considered without cross-reference to the other systems. For example, the natural system, water supply, storm water (drainage) and sewer systems. The natural systems often link up to water resources and ecosystems at a river basin level where water flows are affected by land use, building distribution, and infrastructure.
Population increase in urban areas means increasing pressures on scarce resources. This means an increasing need for integrated approaches connecting the different urban water systems.
Questions that people in the network are asking is:
- How you encourage residents to protect their own home against flooding? This is because the government cannot always prevent flooding. What is the role of the residents themselves?
Have you got answers to the above questions? Please email wac@gca.org