CATEGORY

Water

#17: Heart & Seoul

How did Seoul turn a backed-up expressway into a tranquil urban stream? We take a look at the landmark Cheonggyecheon River Restoration project and ask why, almost 20 year later, this peaceful pocket in...

Daylighting Rivers: A Hidden Gem of Climate Adaptation

Urbanisation in the post-industrial age led to the burial of waterways to make way for buildings, roads, and public spaces. Water, though, cushions the blow of climate change, so many cities are raising channels...

Utilising Untapped Space: Food Security with Rotterdam’s Floating Farm

Space in cities is limited. Urban farming signals better times for food security but if there’s a future in it, we need to find ways to make it fit around existing land uses. When...

Schoonschip: A Community-built Floating Neighbourhood

Living on the water might sound like the vision of a future where climate change has forced humanity to adapt to the rise in sea levels, but Schoonschip in Amsterdam proves that 'building' on...

Notable City: Tanga – Generating City-Wide Benefits by Boosting Youth Social Mobility

Through population growth and in-migration, cities are only going to increase in number and size. This presents a challenge: how do we ensure citizens’ needs are addressed adequately as urban environments sprawl at an...

How Water Companies Can Innovate Wastewater Services & Customer Engagement

Keeping the water flowing is a complex business. Water companies can take a lot of flak if they appear to fail in their responsibilities. But, as we learn from the experiences of Northumbrian Water...

CityChanger Panchali Saikia: Guardian of Urban Water Governance

Water democracy has implications for health, safety, and life opportunities. Nowhere is this more apparent than among the large informal settlements in Indian cities. This is where the work of Panchali Saikia makes a...

The Secrets of Vancouver’s Rain City Strategy

Vancouver has undergone a blue-green infrastructure revolution. Its Rain City Strategy integrated nature making the city more resilient to fluctuations in rainfall. Behind it all is Melina Scholefield, a CityChanger with an impressive portfolio...

CityChanger Vincent Lee: Managing Water with Green Infrastructure

Few firms have the level of recognition that Arup enjoys. This has given Vincent Lee the chance to work on an impressive array of projects since joining the New York office in 2006. He...

Preventing Day Zero: Lessons from Cape Town

Day Zero: the moment a city’s water dries up completely. For Cape Town, this deadly scenario came too close, but it was averted thanks to collective action and decisive leadership. This story serves as...

CityChanger Matt Stewart: Reviving River Recreation

Matt Stewart enjoys nothing more than taking a plunge. A native Aussie, he’s the outdoors type and in 2015 began a campaign to make Melbourne’s Yarra River swimmable again. We caught up with this...

Useful Water Guides: A Reservoir of Resources

Water touches on almost every aspect of our lives and cities. Initially, it appears to be a large and unwieldy beast. Maybe to create sustainable urban systems, we need to break down the components:...

The Challenges Facing Urban Water Management

What water is available to cities is unevenly distributed and increasingly stressed due to population growth. Human activity backed by poor policy safeguards increases volumes of wastewater, reduces that of potable quality, and triggers...

Notable City Indianapolis: Incorporating Stormwater Management into City Culture

Indianapolis saw an opportunity. They had plans for a cultural trail, bringing arts, pride, and improved mobility options to the downtown area. This also handed the city a chance to deal with the amount...

Water Facts & Figures

Water impacts on everything we do, so the problems that mount from handling it poorly are many and varied. To help contextualise the importance of H20 to populous places, we bring you some of...

Case For Urban Water Management

The more we build, the more we disrupt natural water systems, calling into question whether we’ll have enough to sustain growing city populations. Prioritising water management and blue infrastructure will enable urban environments to...

Notable City: São Paulo – Water Challenges Along the Class Divide

São Paulo is a tale of two cities. A broken relationship with water has created a litany of challenges, which hit the sprawling favelas harder than the wealthy centre. The Secretary of Urbanism is...

Where to Start with Urban Water Management

Concerned with how to kick off a better water culture in your city? Whether your region is blighted by too much or too little, our guides are packed full of ideas to get you...