Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
implementation
Water is crucial for life on earth. It is our most precious resource. In many parts of
the world, water scarcity causes immense hardship for human, animal and plant
life. The extent of these areas is steadily increasing (International Water Manage-
ment Institute 2000; Rijsberman 2005; UN Water, Food and Agriculture Organi-
zation of the United Nations 2007). The quality of water has been degrading
rapidly since the Industrial Revolution, a situation which has been accelerated by
the immense increase in population over the last 40 years (Albiac 2009; Carr and
Neary 2009; Nienhuis and Leuven 2001). In the Western world, concerns over
water extend beyond basic infrastructure to now address the preservation of eco-
systems and ecosystem services. With increasing urgency, urban development
professionals including architects, landscape architects, engineers and planners
are researching and implementing various methods to recycle, store and reuse
water, improve its quality, and protect or restore the natural resource base from
which it is extracted (Margulis and Chaouni 2011; Planning Institute Australia
2003).
What we do with water use (how much) and its management (quality, where
it ends up, and how fast it travels) at a local level always impacts a larger system,
which in turn, feeds back to the availability and quality of water in our cities. Of
the many forms that water takes, this topic is concerned with urban stormwater
runoff. It examines the role and design of living roofs to mitigate runoff's envi-
ronmental and infrastructure impacts, while creating productive urban spaces.
Living roofs have to be seen from two sides: the pragmatic/technical side from an
engineer's point of view alongside the environmental, social and/or aesthetic/
experiential side from a designer's point of view. Designers try to create a human
experience resulting in a higher quality of life but this cannot happen without the
engineer's objective to protect water resources for creating and sustaining life.
Urban stormwater runoff poses a suite of receiving water and infrastructure
impacts that threaten public health and welfare as much as ecosystem services,
but also offers an opportunity of a resource to be captured for beneicial uses.
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