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Functional Urban Areas: A Key Challenge in Integrated Urban Water Management

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 May 2023) | Viewed by 15075

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Land Improvement, Environmental Development and Spatial Management, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poznań, Poland
Interests: integrated water resources management; integrated urban water management; spatial planning; sustainable development; ecosystem services; functional urban areas; nature-based solutions; water retention in catchment

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Guest Editor
Department of Forestry, University of Sopron, Sopron, Hungary
Interests: climate change; droughts; regional climate projections; climatic impacts of afforestation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urban development results in significant changes in land use and functional connections between urban and rural areas. Changing the relations between the use of urban and rural areas leads to changes in the quality of the life of residents, the environment and ecosystem services, including water resources.

The issue of water resources management is particularly important in the context of increasing urbanization, observed and projected climate change, and extreme events such as floods and droughts that have proved particularly severe in recent decades.

An important challenge in rapidly growing city systems is also providing water in the right quantity and quality for the needs of socioeconomic and natural systems, which is inextricably linked with the issue of wastewater treatment and rainwater management.

The increased risks of floods and other natural and mixed technical hazards call for place-based responses, cooperation and coordinated policies, as well as mitigation and adaptation actions depending on the territorial context and requiring tailor-made responses at all levels.

In order to cope with the challenges related to water management, especially in functional urban areas (FUA), it is necessary to take into account its numerous aspects, interests, and entities.

The Special Issue welcomes papers focused on the latest knowledge related to problems and challenges in integrated urban water management (IUWM) of FUAs. Relevant topics include but are not limited to the following areas:

  • IUWM in response to climate change and urbanization;
  • Trade-offs between water needs of ecosystems and humans;
  • Exposure, sensitivity, vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation to flood and drought hazards in FUAs;
  • Water conflict management;
  • Nature-based solutions in IUWM;
  • Integrated planning at all levels;
  • Stakeholder involvement in IUWM;
  • Influence of climate change and urbanization on water resources management in FUAs;
  • Methods and models of IUWM optimization;
  • DSS and GIS applications for IUWM.

Dr. Karol Dawid Mrozik
Dr. Borbála Gálos
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • integrated urban water management
  • functional urban areas
  • climate change
  • urbanization
  • nature-based solutions
  • integrated water resources management
  • flood and drought hazards

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 3406 KiB  
Article
Assessing the Effects of Urbanization on Water Flow and Flood Events Using the HEC-HMS Model in the Wirynka River Catchment, Poland
by Ewelina Janicka and Jolanta Kanclerz
Water 2023, 15(1), 86; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15010086 - 27 Dec 2022
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4151
Abstract
Floods are among the most devastating natural disasters in small urban watersheds resulting in loss of life and enormous damage to property and posing a serious threat to the economy. Appropriate modeling can be a useful tool to prevent and reduce such flood [...] Read more.
Floods are among the most devastating natural disasters in small urban watersheds resulting in loss of life and enormous damage to property and posing a serious threat to the economy. Appropriate modeling can be a useful tool to prevent and reduce such flood risks. It is currently important to use hydrological models to assess and predict the water availability of river basins due to climate change to develop a strategy to cope with the changing environment. The study used an integrated approach combining a geographic information system (GIS) and hydrological modeling to assess the impact of urbanization on flash floods in peri-urban developing areas. The modeling was carried out for two spatial aspects relating to 1990 and 2018. The model allowed simulation of the river water flow that can occur under different rainfall probabilities. The study showed that rapid urbanization adversely affects hydrological processes. Reduced infiltration capacity increases water runoff, thereby increasing the risk of flooding or waterlogging. Therefore, it is extremely important to properly manage rainwater in the area. Full article
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31 pages, 2346 KiB  
Article
Economic Incentives in Stormwater Management: A Study of Practice Gaps in Poland
by Izabela Godyń
Water 2022, 14(23), 3817; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14233817 - 23 Nov 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2899
Abstract
Sustainable rainwater management is made possible, among others, by nationwide and local policies and regulations that create economic incentives. This article analyzes how existing economic instruments in Poland motivate property owners to make investments that manage rainwater on their own properties. Two types [...] Read more.
Sustainable rainwater management is made possible, among others, by nationwide and local policies and regulations that create economic incentives. This article analyzes how existing economic instruments in Poland motivate property owners to make investments that manage rainwater on their own properties. Two types of investments were analyzed: bioswales as one of the lowest-cost green infrastructure measures in construction and operation, and the rainwater harvesting solution that uses rainwater to irrigate greenery. Simulation of this type of investment was undertaken in response to existing economic incentives—obtainable discounts of national and municipal rainwater drainage fees and municipal subsidy programs for rainwater management from three cities of different sizes selected from the Greater Poland province. Analyses were carried out for three types of development: different intensity, sealing of the land, and number of residents. The financial profitability of the investment was evaluated by determining the payback period, NPV, and benefit–cost ratio, taking into account the possible discounts in fees and investment subsidies in the variant analyses. It was shown that the incentive function of national fees for rainwater drainage is low, and that the incentive function of municipal fees and subsidies is higher, depending on the design of the fee (rates and discounts) and subsidy (directions and level of subsidies) systems. Full article
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21 pages, 2033 KiB  
Article
Problems of Local Flooding in Functional Urban Areas in Poland
by Karol Dawid Mrozik
Water 2022, 14(16), 2453; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14162453 - 9 Aug 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3602
Abstract
The research process of developing recommendations for rural communities directly adjacent to metropolitan cities in the field of local flooding protection, especially retention fee was preceded by: analysis of secondary data in 100 communities in three Functional Urban Areas (Metropolitan Areas, MA) in [...] Read more.
The research process of developing recommendations for rural communities directly adjacent to metropolitan cities in the field of local flooding protection, especially retention fee was preceded by: analysis of secondary data in 100 communities in three Functional Urban Areas (Metropolitan Areas, MA) in Poland: Poznań MA, Wrocław MA and Łódź MA (assessment of flooding and urbanization), analysis of primary data in 18 rural communities immediately adjacent to the metropolitan centers: semi-structured telephone interviews (stormwater fee from the stakeholder perspective) and survey research (local floodings from the citizen perspectives). To illustrate the scale of the flooding problem in MAs, flood risk maps were used along with data from the State Fire Service on local threats, and for assessing the scale of suburbanization data obtained from Statistics Poland. Although residents confirmed their readiness to co-finance the activities supporting the development of water retention, local authorities were hesitant to introduce additional charges for the residents. Therefore, a better solution would be to set the fees already at the national level. However, communities should be given more power with regards to the distribution of collected funds which, in turn, should be allocated directly to the local programs for the enhancement of retention capacity in the local catchments. Full article
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18 pages, 3075 KiB  
Article
Integrating Sponge City Requirements into the Management of Urban Development Land: An Improved Methodology for Sponge City Implementation
by Dongdong Yang, Xin Zhao and Bruce C. Anderson
Water 2022, 14(7), 1156; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14071156 - 4 Apr 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3508
Abstract
Sponge city planning aims to manage urban development land to prevent flooding and to support the achievement of water resource protection objectives. In this study, from the perspective of rainfall management demand and ability, we present an improved planning method, including two calculation [...] Read more.
Sponge city planning aims to manage urban development land to prevent flooding and to support the achievement of water resource protection objectives. In this study, from the perspective of rainfall management demand and ability, we present an improved planning method, including two calculation models, aimed at determining the VCRAR (volume capture ratio of annual rainfall) and then integrating VCRAR requirements into the management of urban development land more accurately and objectively, while simultaneously considering the rainfall condition and urban planning attributes to support the implementation of sponge city planning. Compared to the current method, the VCRAR calculation model greatly improves the accuracy of the VCRAR for various space scales, and the conversion model solves the fundamental problem that urban land indicators corresponding to the VCRAR are difficult to calculate objectively and accurately. Moreover, this methodology can achieve a reasonable tradeoff between the development of individual districts and the environmental protection of the whole urban watershed, which allows a poetic vision to be turned into executable planning and design. The results of the application of this methodology in a case study in Jizhou, China, show that the improved method can make land utilization, development period and natural conditions more integrated and scientifically involved in the indicator calculation. The results also quantitatively show that the capacity of volume capture inside the site for one district increases as its green space ratio increases, and it decreases with an increase in the transformation difficulty for stormwater management facilities, when restricted by the investment and available space. Full article
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