This research and publication was kindly supported by: Foreword Herbert Dreiseitl 7
SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), Canada Preface 8
Holcim (Canada) Inc. How to Read the Case Studies 12
John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto Introduction: Are We Out of Water? 14
Connaught New Researcher Award, University of Toronto
Water, Technology, and Society: A Historical Overview Antoine Picon 28
OALA (Ontario Association of Landscape Architects)
LACF (Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation)
PART 1 Introduction Beyond Low Flush Toilets 41
Layout, cover design, and typography: WATER ESSAYS
Anita Matusevics, Wonder incorporated, Toronto FOR Technical Optimism as an Antidote to Water Scarcity:
DOMESTIC USE Desalination Systems in Israel, Australia, and Spain Alon Tal 46
Copy editing: Robin Paxton-Beesley
A New Model for Water Technology Dissemination:
Reaching 20 Million People by 2020 with Better Water and Sanitation
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Camille Dow Baker and Tommy Ka Kit Ngai 60
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. CASE STUDIES
Kanchan Arsenic Filter 70
Bibliographic information published by the German National Library
Liquid Wrap 74
The German National Library lists this publication in the
Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at Vena Water Condenser 78
http://dnb.dnb.de. Isla Urbana 82
Down to Earth 86
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the
material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in
databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.
PART 2 Introduction Water Equals Food 91
WATER ESSAYS
This publication is also available
FOR Bridging the Gap between Available Water and Water Demand:
as an e-book pdf (ISBN 978-3-03821-006-1) and
EPUB (ISBN 978-3-03821-970-5). AGRICULTURAL Water Technologies for Agricultural Production in Israel Eilon M. Adar 96
PRODUCTION The African Market Garden: Introduction of Drip Irrigation
to the Sudano Sahel Region Dov Pasternak and Lennart Woltering 104
© 2015 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel The Role of Design in Hydrological Modeling of River Basins:
P.O. Box 44, 4009 Basel, Switzerland The Drâa Oasis Valley Aziza Chaouni 112
Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston A Model for Integrated Agrarian Urbanism:
Water Management in the Jordan River Basin Fadi Masoud 128
Printed on acid-free paper produced from chlorine-free pulp. TCF CASE STUDY
Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation in Israel 142
Printed in Germany
ISBN 978-3-03821-541-7
PART 3 Introduction Urban Aquatic Ecosystems 147
WATER ESSAYS
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FOR Micro-Urban Communities and Water-Made Landscapes: Critical Refugia,
www.birkhauser.com ECOSYSTEM Technologies, and Coexistence in the Arid Lands Gini Lee 152
SERVICES Water-Conserving Design Solutions: Contributions of Water Budget Analysis
in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions James L. Wescoat Jr. 162
CASE STUDIES
Hiriya Landfill Recycling Park 174
Taragalte Ecolodge 178
Wadi Hanifah Restoration Project 182
Wadi Hanifah Bioremediation Facility 186
Bibliography and References 192 Illustration Credits 200
About the Authors 202 Project Index 207 Acknowledgements 208
4
Foreword
Water has always been one of the strongest driving influences for structures in both the natural
and urban environments. Societies in arid and desert regions maintain powerful and deep-rooted
cultural narratives about water. It is such a significant resource that people in some desert
regions actually use numerous words for each of the various manifestations of water—perhaps
unsurprisingly, since every drop counts.
Water events can effect dramatic changes to such fragile landscapes. Although a prolonged
period of aridity ultimately creates a desert landscape, the character of desert morphology is
nonetheless influenced by the flow of water. Water reshapes topography through erosion and
sedimentation, digs new wadis, carves out rock formations, and alters the structure of plains.
What is considered an ordinary rain shower in a temperate climate may temporarily transform
a barren desertscape into a flowering paradise. Seemingly overnight, the dryland turns into
a bustling hub of animals, insects, and plants, brightly colored and emitting exotic scents
and fantastical chirping sounds. This transformation is among the most magical that one can
experience in the desert.
There are critical questions at hand about climate change and other man-made alterations
to natural water systems. Increasing urbanization of arid regions and the gradual desertification
of formerly non-arid regions urge us to ask the questions: How should water be understood in
relation to human habitation? What relationship should exist between natural water systems and
urban water infrastructure in arid regions?
To explore these questions effectively, we must consider the social and technological aspects
of human habitation as intertwined systems. All cultural values, practices, rituals, and beliefs,
including those that influence food production, trade, and craft, have an impact on how water
is perceived and managed. In order to evaluate the relationship between human habitation and
water, we need to understand the priorities behind the regulation of water quantity via storage
and supply systems, as well as how water quality is improved by way of filtration. A lack of
appropriate water management systems and practices reflects a failure of sustainable human
development and of any related design agenda.
Water research and development today focuses primarily on water engineering, such as
development of mathematical models for hydraulics, flood risk analysis, and energy efficiency.
Although we have acquired a sophisticated array of engineering tools and planning instruments
to modify and modulate water, we have done very little research into how urban communities in
arid zones can co-evolve with their fragile environments, and with ongoing water shortages. The
main challenge, in my view, is not a lack of technological know-how, but a lack of integration
between technology and urban design, and a shortage of multi-functional design strategies that
can address a variety of often conflicting requirements.
Based on my 30 years of experience studying and working with water in a diversity of regions
and climate zones across the globe, I have come to realize that traditional engineering solutions
often fail to address the issue of extreme water variability in arid regions. Therefore, we need
to develop a new approach, in the form of a multi-disciplinary conversation which includes
the perspectives of city planning, urban design, landscape architecture, architecture, material
technologies, engineering, policy, and community capacity building. Perhaps most importantly,
we would benefit from the creation of a stronger emotional and spiritual connection to water. This
could be done with artworks that celebrate the value of water and designs that emphasize its
boundless properties.
Out of Water: Design Solutions for Arid Regions showcases essays from a diverse group of
experts, and features projects by innovative designers. These studies are strong contributions to
key topics, such as the sustainable city, water conservation design, and best water management
practices. By analyzing different case studies through drawings, diagrams, and text, the book
brings theory into the realm of practice, and reaches a wide audience within the design world
and beyond. This book presents new insights about water scarcity, and new strategies for
keeping water-sensitive regions livable.
Professor Herbert Dreiseitl
7
Preface
Based on five years of research, the preparation of and feedback from a traveling exhibition, and
the output of a major conference, the results of the Out of Water project are represented here in
a series of case studies and essays by international experts, including analytical drawings of both
projected and implemented solutions. It may be helpful, in the case of this rather complex topic,
to describe some of the project’s background.
In 2008, architecture professor Aziza Chaouni invited me to collaborate on a design project
in the Moroccan Sahara. Born and raised in Fez, Morocco, Aziza had cultivated an interest and
expertise in desert tourism and rural developments. She had been working with the Moroccan
Ministry of Tourism to develop design models for “eco-tourism” as a way to protect the delicate
desert ecology and ethnic culture, prone as they are to the damage and stress associated with
a booming tourism industry. We focused on the Drâa Valley, located at the edge of one of the
largest oases in Morocco, which has been the home of nomadic and sedentary tribes throughout
many centuries.
The Drâa Valley is 1,000km long, reaches from the Atlas Mountains to the edge of the
Sahara, and is known as Morocco’s “date basket.” In the last 40 years, the Drâa Valley’s oasian
ecology and economy have been threatened by the rapid advancement of the desert dunes in
the south, and ongoing desiccation of vast agricultural areas. This transformation is the result of
two processes: climate change and man-made alterations to the natural flow of the Drâa River.
The agriculture-based economy in the southern reaches of the Drâa began to shrink, defenseless
in the face of ongoing desertification, and tourism began to take its place. Our charge was
to develop new architectural and landscape models for tourism that would promote water
conservation and reforestation as a means to reinforce the oasis edge.
As part of our continuing research, I attended the 2008 International Conference on Drylands,
Deserts, and Desertification at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. The conference
was a global gathering of scientists, industry and government representatives, international
development aid agencies, and other stakeholders from over 60 countries, concerned about
land degradation, sustainable use, and development in the drylands. Lecture topics ranged
from agriculture and biotechnology to hydrology, desalination and water treatment, climate
change, policy, and desert ecology. Over the four days of the conference, I took the opportunity
to introduce myself to a number of presenters, all of whom were absolutely perplexed by my
attendance: “What does landscape architecture have to do with water scarcity, land degradation,
and climate change?” they would ask.
It immediately dawned on me that the gap between science, politics, and design with respect
to water conservation and sustainable development still poses a great challenge to deeper
Figure 1: The “Out of Water” exhibition understanding of these issues. I also noted that research efforts in architecture with respect to
featured five mobile “toilet thrones;” arid climates are largely concerned with thermal insulation and energy efficiency, while water
viewers were required to occupy is considered a given resource to be configured by science and engineering and governed by
the toilet seat when reading the
municipal and regional entities. Architecture, landscape, and urban design were not part of the
case studies. Self-conscious and
slightly embarrassed by the invasion conversation to discuss mitigating water scarcity and land degradation in drylands. This lack
of privacy, the viewer was invited of communication and exchange meant that innovations in water engineering and agricultural
to reflect upon his or her individual science were not being carried over to architecture, landscape, and urban design. That struck
relationship to water and accountability both Aziza and myself as untenable, so we decided to address this lack.
to wastewater cycling (top)
Back in Toronto, we created the exhibition “Out of Water: Innovative Technologies in Arid
Figure 5: Inspired by David Lynch’s Climates,” intended to highlight the vital mechanisms of water flow and sanitation in arid
1984 movie Dune, architect Jimenez climates. It featured a range of design proposals and built projects, and questioned their roles
Lai’s illustrated narrative “Super Earth”
in contemporary design. In particular, we asked ourselves whether today’s environmental
investigates the future of a water-less
world (bottom) preoccupation with water scarcity is actually discernible in the design of urban form. In the
exhibition, 24 built and unbuilt case studies were visually analyzed for their approaches to the
Figure 3: Architect Andrew Kudless’ integration of three water processes: collection, treatment, and/or distribution. The drawings
“Sietch Nevada” proposes a new
focused on how water management is embedded into design form, environmental function,
typology of underground communities
to form around subterranean water and experience, while the case studies were selected to represent a diversity of scales and
storage canals in Nevada (opposite) geographical contexts (Figure 1).
8 9
The exhibition also invited ten designers to imagine the future of arid cities, 100 years from
now. David Fletcher, for example, imagined the incremental urban densification of Los Angeles,
which in turn opens up vast areas for wastewater reclamation via reservoirs and wetlands. As
sea levels rise, tidal energy is harnessed to operate desalination, as well as the distribution
of reclaimed water (Figure 2). Andrew Kudless inverted the typical urban pattern found in
Nevada, imagining an underground community structured around a network of subterranean
water storage canals (Figure 3). N-1 turned the house and garden relationship inside out; they
employed a biological system for the recycling of grey water in situ that would, in turn, provide
interior cooling (Figure 4). And Jimenez Lai told a story of spaceship travelers who fled a parched
Earth in search of fresh water, but who, in the meantime, depended on a mechanism that
processed their bodily waste into potable water (Figure 5).
The exhibition attempted to speculate upon the relation between water technology and design
and to reassert the designer’s role in synthesizing the environmental and technical aspects of
water systems in arid regions. The “Out of Water” exhibition generated enough interest to travel
to six architecture programs across the U.S., so we felt the time was right to go a step further.
We wanted to extend our conversations to specific fields of study beyond our own, and so open
up a broader dialogue with other disciplines about the sustainable development of arid regions, in
particular the natural and social sciences.
The result was the two-day conference “Out of Water: Sustaining Development in Arid
Climates,” a forum to discuss water scarcity and management in arid regions. The conference
encouraged knowledge transfer among a diversity of disciplines with regard to methods and
priorities.
The attendees consisted of 22 established and emergent designers, scholars, and scientists,
brought together to evaluate currently implemented solutions with regard to their efficiency
and geographic relevance. The disciplines represented included environmental law and water
policy, public health, agronomy, hydrology, geography, building science, business strategies,
civil engineering, landscape architecture, architecture, and urban design. Our primary objectives
were, first, to identify applied and theoretical intersections among distinct areas of expertise; and
second, to discuss the diverse definitions of water scarcity, technology, and transdisciplinarity.
The speakers were selected to represent an array of arid and semi-arid regions, including
Australia, Nepal, India, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, the Sudano
Sahel, Morocco, Arizona, and Southern California. Despite regional similarities in climate,
Open Aerobic Reactors each project was unique both in the scale of the intervention and in the cultural, economic, and
(Living System Vegetation)
political contexts. The opportunity to transfer lessons learned across regions and disciplines was
EFB (Ecological Fluidized Beds, augmented by the opportunity to compare geographic specificities of arid regions.
Crushed Rocks)
Filter • You may ask: Why focus on arid regions?
(Sand)
The answer is clear; arid regions have had no choice but to mandate, innovate, and fully
Aromatic Plants integrate water conservation modalities. From city planning to investment in engineering and
(Lavender, Mint, Lemon Verbenna)
infrastructure, to the redesign of building facades, societies in arid climates are faster to
embrace a retrofit of their entire operations.
• You may also ask: Why study water scarcity in non-arid regions?
Water scarcity is a symptom of a variety of factors, not only climatological but also
anthropogenic, such as water diversion, over-consumption, deforestation, unsustainable
agriculture, contamination, and failing or non-existent infrastructure. In fact, some of the
Figure 4: N-1 Architects and their
world’s wettest, most water-rich countries continuously rank highest in water scarcity due
team propose to invert the McMansion
such that it ingests its own front- and to the lack of infrastructure. Other water-rich areas that have reliable access to water and
backyard. Titled the Out-House, its sanitation may be characterized by a general perception of abundance, often resulting in
ingested interior yard becomes an high water usage, and a lack of urgency to rethink water systems in order to make them
activated organic machine for the more efficient and multi-functional.
harvesting and recycling of water.
The newly ingested yard is sustained
Arid climates are where necessity begets inventions that may serve as examples for action
by the bathroom––the site of human
waste disposal becomes the site of across a multitude of climate zones and geographies, examples that may soon be even more
production, providing the necessary directly relevant in light of population growth, peak resources, and climate change projections.
nutrients for plant and organisms,
We hope that this publication will create new insight about the development of sustainable
which in turn clean the water. What
was once the exterior of the house is cities, and inspire designers to exchange ideas and expertise with a broader set of academic
now the most private zone and professional fields. The goal, as we see it, is to learn about new concepts, technologies,
and materials, as well as to gain exposure to different methods and tools as derived from
Figure 2: Landscape architect such exchanges. We are optimistic that this publication will engender new discussions within
David Fletcher’s “Age of Waste”
envisions Los Angeles to transition
architectural schools and professional practices, and that these discussions will feature a greater
from a watershed to a waste- range of approaches that landscape, urban, and architectural designers can apply in conjunction
watershed (opposite) with their own specific professional skills and expertise.
10 11
How to Read the Case Studies PERFORMANCE MATRIX > 1,000,000L HIGH REGION XL
1 - WATER INPUT QUALITY
2 - WATER OUTPUT VOLUME > 100,000L L
The case studies in this book are meant to support the essay contributions with built and
speculative design project examples. The projects range in scale and geographical context. 3 - ENERGY CONSUMPTION
These are explored through an original set of architectural drawings and diagrams, generated by 4 - CONNECTIVITY
Margolis and Chaouni. The drawings are based on materials sourced from the respective design 5 - SCALE > 10,000L LOW SITE M
firms or institutions.
To support the main premise of the book, a legend of water quality and flows are represented
> 1,000L S
in each project’s drawings using a color legend. Each project can be read in terms of five
gradients of blue; for example, the lightest blue represents potable water and the darkest blue
represents contaminated/saline water. The case studies are also explored through an evaluation
matrix, which ranks from high to low energy use and quantity of water flowing through the > 100L NUL OBJECT XS
project, and identifies the level of connectivity (e.g., regional, site, object) and scale (e.g., small, LEGEND 1 2 3 4 5
medium, large). Using icons, this ranking system is overlaid with additional information about
the water input (i.e. the original source of the water) and water output usage (e.g., drinking, WATER QUALITY
irrigation). The water output icons are marked by an additional blue ring according to the water 1 POTABLE
quality legend (i.e. gradient).
5 CONTAMINATED / SALINE
1 2 3 4 5
ENERGY
case study case study location precipitation and
data title temperature charts
SELF-SUFFICIENT SOLAR WIND BIO-FUEL PETROL HYDROELECTRIC
CONNECTIVITY SCALE
REGIONAL SITE OBJECT XS S M L XL
WATER INPUT
SEWAGE GREY WATER RUNOFF GROUND WATER VAPOR SEA WATER
description WATER OUTPUT USAGE
text
RING COLOUR INDICATES
WATER QUALITY
DRINKING IRRIGATION GROUND WATER WASHING
RECHARGE
12 13
Introduction: Are We Out of Water?
On one level, this book is focused on contemporary technologies and design solutions to
problems associated with water scarcity and fragile aquatic ecosystems in urbanized arid
regions. The issues and projects discussed in the essays and case studies address the limited
and unpredictable water availability—alternating from drought to flood, scarcity to surplus—and
offering a window into the technological ingenuity that emerges from arid regions.
Yet the book’s title, Out of Water, is meant as a provocation. Although the book highlights a
growing crisis, its collection of essays and case studies actually demonstrates that water scarcity
is a relative term—a condition that is contingent upon the interrelation between humans and
water, and upon water management and technology. Therefore, the book is intended to provoke
a new perception of water. Instead of framing water as a given and inert resource, and as a
backdrop to habitation and development, it asks us to imagine new relations between availability
(quantity and quality) and allocation, use and reuse; it asks us to imagine new relations between
human habitation and aquatic ecosystems over variable time (daily, seasonally, annually) and
spatial scales (site, neighborhood, watershed).
Water scarcity is becoming increasingly familiar to us, and it is no longer limited to arid
regions. The 2014 U.S. Drought Monitor reported that more than 80% of California is now in
a state of extreme or exceptional drought. In 2012, nearly two-thirds of the continental United
States was in a state of drought, the most severe and extensive drought in at least 25 years,
prompting the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to declare a disaster (USDA, 2012).
Central and eastern Canada experienced equally catastrophic economic and environmental
ramifications, also threatening food security (CBC News, 2012). Although arid and semi-
arid regions have always struggled with prolonged periods of drought, now regions that
were historically “wet” are experiencing record droughts. The arid belt is expanding. Some
predict that drier and drier seasons are on the horizon. But it is the increase in demand due to
population growth and mismanagement of water that is making the situation more controversial.
Waterlessness is not only defined according to its climatic context, but also by its socio-
technological milieu. In fact, water should be reframed as a factor of natural-social-technological
dynamics (Bakker, 2012).
Along the same lines, water technology requires a broader definition that goes beyond its
association with engineered or mechanical solutions. Water technology must be considered as
a set of strategies that value the benefits of natural system functions, such as the capacity of
aquatic and vegetal ecosystems to regulate water flow, cool ambient air, and provide green open
spaces for public recreation within cities (Larson, et al., 2013). At the same time, technology
should be understood in the context of a social dimension, for example, the ways in which
technology can be mobilized under varying centralized or distributed social structures. In that
regard, technology encompasses a range of expert (high-tech) and non-expert (low-tech)
solutions.
The essays and case studies represent perspectives from several science, engineering, and
social science fields. We believe that it is the designer’s role to mediate, translate, and synthesize
the range of approaches and priorities of the natural, social, and engineering sciences.
Moreover, it is the designer’s role to communicate to a broader public and to decision-makers the
possibilities of implementing, or integrating new solutions. Finally, it is also the designer’s role to
engage the public in imagining new societies, new communities, and new ways of defining water,
both culturally and physically (Nassauer, 2013).
Water Scarcity and Desertification
Two terms, water scarcity and desertification, merit a brief description, as the approach taken
in this book differs from the standard approach to water management and urban planning.
In the standard approach, municipal potable water supply is distinct from the environmental
management of streams, rivers, and lakes, and also distinct from agricultural irrigation, which
Figure 3: An aerial view of the Wadi typically takes place outside of cities. By contrast, the essays and case studies in this book take
Hanifah bioremediation facility as a starting point an interest in “integrated urban water cycle planning and management,”
14 15
Figure 1: The Wadi Hanifah’s which is defined as an integrated management of waterways, groundwater, stormwater,
naturalized channels employ check wastewater, and potable water supply, a comprehensive urban and regional strategy (Wong
dams to attenuate water flow (bottom)
and Brown, 2009).
Figure 2: Wadi Hanifah has become Water scarcity is the outcome of a complex set of factors, and is therefore defined through
a poplular public park and a civic different models and priorities. One of the most common models, which is known as the
destination (top)
“Falkenmark indicator” or “water stress index,” measures the amount of renewable fresh water
availability per person, per year (Falkenmark, 1989). Although straightforward, this method fails
to recognize differences in water availability and water use habits from region to region within
one country, or accessibility to water resources (e.g., deep aquifers), or man-made sources (e.g.,
desalination; Rijsberman, 2006). Another model defines water scarcity according to a criticality
ratio, which is based on demand and supply, or annual water withdrawal relative to available
water resources (Raskin, 1997). Yet, again, this model does not consider a range of water
technologies such as desalination, or water treatment and recycling (Rijsberman, 2006).
Others maintain a wider assessment of water management, taking into consideration both
physical and economic factors. For example, the International Water Management Institute
(IWMI) defines water scarcity according to each country’s water infrastructure and technologies
(e.g., desalination, water recycling) as well as its adaptive capacity, the potential for infrastructure
development and improvement (Seckler, 1998). This enables an assessment of economic
investment relative to water demand (Molden, 2007). Water scarcity is also measured according
to the “water poverty index,” which is better suited for analysis at a local level, since it takes into
account income and wealth in relation to water access, quantity, quality, and variability, as well
as water uses for domestic, food, and productive purposes, the capacity for water management,
and environmental conditions (Sullivan, 2003).
There is no single definition for water scarcity. Water scarcity in hot arid regions is largely
affected by low rainfall and prolonged droughts (see essays by Lee and Wescoat). Water-
intensive agricultural and over-extraction of ground water are also common factors (see essays
by Chaouni and Masoud), as well as environmental degradation (see Wadi Hanifah case study),
contamination (see essay by Baker and Ngai), damming, and diversion of surface water (see
essays by Chaouni and Masoud). Economic water scarcity typically manifests in an absence
of water and sanitation infrastructure (see essay by Baker and Ngai), failure to upgrade aging
infrastructure (see Isla Urbana case study), or inappropriate water management practices (see
essay by Pasternak and Woltering), all of which are directly correlated to poverty and hunger.
The term “desertification” is defined as land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-
humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities
(United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification [UNCCD], 2014). It is interrelated with
water scarcity, as the same factors that contribute to water scarcity (e.g., water diversion,
deforestation, soil erosion, climate change, unsustainable agricultural practices, etc.) result in
land degradation. Regardless of the semantics, what is pertinent here is that water systems must
be understood in the context of their broader ecological systems, both natural and constructed,
specifically in relation to plant ecology and soil.
Water for What?
Globally, we are not out of water. In fact, there is enough water for present and future needs for
drinking and food. But as Antoine Picon notes in his opening essay, water is not where, or when,
we want it to be. Nor is it in the quality state that we always want it to be, but instead salty or
contaminated. The first paradigm shift suggested by this book is that attention should shift from
availability to quality of water. As Eilon Adar states in his essay: “There is no water deficit, but
a deficit in high water quality.” By reframing the questions—what is water used for, what is the
required quality state, and when is it needed?—water can be perceived in a much more nuanced
way, a valuable resource in all of its quality states.
The main thematic thread running through the essays and case studies in this book
articulates a new, or expanded water vocabulary: there is not just one water, but a gradient of
water qualities. In other words, in addition to conventional fresh water resources (lakes, rivers,
aquifers), non-potable water sources (seawater, contaminated surface runoff, grey water, vapor)
16 17
have become viable by means of a variety of treatment processes, including the relatively new Effectiveness vs. Efficiency
reverse osmosis (see essay by Tal), but also the traditional sand filter (see Kanchan Arsenic Filter Open-loop water and sanitation systems are indeed efficient. Potable water is delivered to a
case study) and the well-known principle of vapor condensation (see Vena Water Condenser variety of end users, and sanitation infrastructure removes wastewater as quickly as possible,
case study). Consequently, total available water has increased. ensuring that there is no overlap with drinking water supplies. By contrast, a water management
The vocabulary of water ought to exceed the binary mode of water and sanitation at either model that best exemplifies “effectiveness” is Integrated Water Cycle Management (IWCM).
end of the pipe, which is still the primary model that dictates the relationship between water and The central idea of IWCM is that the value of all natural waterways, groundwater, stormwater,
city in the developed world. In most cities today, stormwater runoff is not collected for reuse. wastewater, and potable water supply is assessed and managed as part of a comprehensive
Furthermore, in cities with water and sanitation infrastructure, greywater reuse is commonly urban design strategy. A key component of this strategy is incorporation of closed-loop systems
disallowed rather than mandated or incentivized. Non-potable quality water should be allocated in which excess water or effluent becomes an input for new processes (Khouri, 2006).
to various uses such as toilet flushing and irrigation in urban and rural areas, utilizing a dual water One such closed-loop system, called Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD), is intended to
supply system with parallel potable and non-potable pipe networks. As a result, the pressure on manage the impacts of stormwater from development by integrating water cycle management
diminishing potable water resources would be minimized, while wastewater discharge would be into urban planning and design. WSUD considers, among other things, urban design,
diverted away from natural water systems, reducing their environmental degradation. infrastructure design, streetscapes, roads, and drainage systems, and aims to protect and
Framing water in terms of chemical and biological quality requires not only a new improve waterway health by working with the natural water cycle as closely as possible (Wong
organizational scheme to link a range of water qualities and use requirements, but also a and Eadie, 2000).
comprehensive water calendar that takes into account natural water cycles in conjunction In Australia, where IWCM is well established, the national water recycling guidelines
with non-potable water streams. In other words, what is the quality and quantity needed, and include regulations for stormwater and wastewater reuse and have consequently reduced
when? As James Wescoat describes in his essay, the design of arid land habitation has been domestic potable water consumption significantly. The cycling of non-potable water resources
traditionally structured around the variability between scarcity and surplus. The legacy of this is implemented through a dual water supply system: two parallel systems of which one supplies
design approach is rooted in water budget analysis and water conserving design, and in methods potable water for household uses such as drinking, cooking, and washing, and the other supplies
of regulating the presence of water according to temporality—frequency, intensity, and duration recycled wastewater and/or stormwater runoff for toilet flushing and outdoor uses such as
of weather events—as well as the spatial scale and physical attributes of a site—volume of water garden watering (Lazarova, et al., 2013).
relative to topography, surface porosity, vegetation, and built structures. While having no water
or too much water is often seen as a vulnerability, it can also be thought of as an opportunity to
develop joint strategies for water management that mediate the two extremes. Interconnectedness is More Important than Self-Sufficiency
Modifying the presence of water offers vast possibilities for design and for shaping both Eilon Adar, in his essay contribution, offers an exemplary closed-loop model in the agricultural
social and ecological systems. At the regional scale, for instance, municipal sewage offers a sector in Israel. At a business-to-business scale, networks of end-users synergistically exchange
continuous source of water that can bridge the seasonal and annual gaps caused by drought surplus low-quality water and residue. In effect, multiple end users utilize the same unit of water
with respect to both irrigation and hydro-ecological needs, including stream restoration and for their crops and operations. In parallel, 75% of all municipal wastewater across the country
aquifer recharge (see Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation in Israel, Hiriya Landfill Recycling is treated and reused for irrigation in agriculture and parks, as well as stream restoration and
Park, and Taragalte Ecolodge case studies). The detention and attenuation of water flow on-site aquifer recharge (see Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation case study). The unconventional
or within a riverbed via reservoirs, check dams, micro-catchments (see essay by Masoud as well idea here is that while urbanization can alter and degrade aquatic ecosystems and exacerbate
as Wadi Hanifah and Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation in Israel case studies; Figure 1), water scarcity, urban effluent maintains a constant flow into otherwise dry river systems. The
and inflatable dams, as well as the mechanical distribution of water via pumps and channels, can result is not only significant with respect to water conservation, but also to combined economic
be utilized to dissipate or attenuate water (see essays by Chaouni and Wescoat), and conversely, and ecological productivity, which arguably could not be realized at this scale without the
to intensify or concentrate water in specific areas. interconnectedness of public and private entities.
Lastly, all the examples featured in this book point to spatial configurations and aesthetic These closed-loop agricultural models could equally serve as a reference for design thinking.
potentials based in an understanding of the temporal and spatial scales of various water sources. Through the interconnection of end users in the city and beyond, new and unconventional
At the urban scale, the regulation of an ephemeral river transforms a barren landscape into a pairings of urban land uses could emerge, which in turn could generate new architectural
civic destination (see Wadi Hanifah case study; Figure 2). At the site scale, a network of sunken typologies, cultural or commercial programs, and amenities. This idea invokes a proposal by the
courtyards or constructed open and covered reservoirs, in combination with planting geometries architecture firm BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) for a new way of thinking about a sustainable energy
and materials selection, come to reveal the fluctuating levels of water, and the seasonal future for Denmark. Of course, the deployment of renewable energy technology, such as solar
transformation of space becomes its aesthetic expression (see essay by Wescoat). arrays or windmills, might be the first idea to come up and may be the most efficient. However,
this proposal takes the position that rather than maintaining the idea of cities as consumers of
energy, cities can be designed to be zero net energy. The BIG proposal offers a new approach
Design with Water: Integrated Water Cycles to urban design that is based on interconnected energy users. For instance, they imagine new
The second paradigm shift that emerges from this collection of essays and case studies is a pairings of end users who produce excess heat with end users who require energy for heating.
transition from an extremely utilitarian, single-purpose system to integrated or hybrid systems They couple supermarkets, which generate excess heat from refrigeration, with indoor swimming
that are multi-functional—a kind of opportunism by a large number of interactions at multiple pools, which require heating. The new urban architectural typology could produce a scenario in
and nested scales (material, building, site, area, region, inter-region; Nassauer, 2013), which which a parent is grocery shopping while their child enjoys a swim lesson at the pool. This level
prioritizes a range of values (natural, social, technological) as follows: of synergy and opportunism can be extrapolated for water cycling in the city and the ways in
• Effectiveness vs. efficiency which new programs and experiences could develop.
• Interconnectedness is more important than self-sufficiency In addition to interconnectedness among end users, closed-loop systems at the urban and
regional scales can also pertain to the interaction between urban water systems and hydrological
• Multi-objective optimization
flows or natural aquatic ecosystems. This type of interaction is defined by the term “ecosystem
• Diverse and redundant solutions generate resilience services”—physical, economic, and cultural benefits gained from the functions of ecosystems.
• Adaptive and flexible water management Urban aquatic ecosystems can provide a range of such ecosystem services: as flood
18 19
mitigation, erosion control, or the protection of property and human life, as well as water quality
improvement and conservation, wastewater treatment, the creation of habitat, and provision of
education, recreation, and aesthetic value (Larson, et al., 2013). Furthermore, the management
of urban aquatic ecosystems also has a direct relation to urban energy management, as the
presence of water within the urban landscape is imperative for such functions as evaporative
cooling and subsequent reduction in energy consumption.
Multi-Objective Optimization
Integrated water cycle management is also characterized by solutions that are multi-
functional. The Wadi Hanifah restoration project, for instance, diverts urban wastewater to a
bioremediation facility, which also functions as a public park and a landmark for the city. This
project demonstrates that although regional water cycling programs are typically legislated and
operated by water authorities and affiliated engineering services, the shift toward multi-objective
optimization at the regional and metropolitan scales offers designers and planner the opportunity
to rethink emergent infrastructural landscapes as a socio-cultural, economic, and ecological
extension of the city (Figure 3).
For instance, the network of wastewater treatment reservoirs in Israel that span vast
agricultural valleys can integrate wildlife sanctuaries, recreational parks, and agro-tourism
destinations, learning from case study examples such as Emscher Landschaftspark and Peter
Latz’s Duisburg-Nord Landscape Park (Weilacher, 2008). In fact, it is Latz’s design at the Hiriya
Landfill Recycling Park which gives context to the subsurface wetland garden featured in this
book (see Hiriya Landfill Recycling Park case study). At a much smaller scale, this bioremediation
facility serves as an extension of the park’s environmental education center by meeting not only
ecological objectives—water conservation, pollution reduction, and habitat forming—but also
educational and aesthetic objectives (Figures 4a and 4b).
Masoud’s proposal for the Jordan Valley, as described in his essay, blurs the line between
urban and rural by conceiving of a new urban code for systematic integration of agricultural
Figure 4a: The bioremediation wetland
production and recycling of non-potable sources. His proposal visualizes water systems as
garden and adjacent environmental a framework around which urban development, public space, water-sanitation infrastructure,
education center with the Hiriya ecological systems, and agriculture are organized. Here, natural, social, and technological
Landfill “mountain” in the distance systems converge as multi-use spaces that operate in a mutually beneficial manner.
(top)
Two projects under development that were presented as part of the “Out of Water”
Figure 4b: The wetland garden and conference at the University of Toronto are evidence of similar trends in the field of architecture,
environmental education center seen with experimental building façades that utilize atmospheric elements to collect or recycle
from the top of the Hiriya Landfill
water. The Solar Enclosures for Water Reuse (SEWR) by the Center for Architecture Science
”mountain” during construction, Israel,
2007. The bioremediation garden is and Ecology (CASE) are exterior building façade modules that decontaminate grey water
part of a complex of waste recycling via ultraviolet exposure for reuse within the building (Figures 5a, 5b, and 5c). Water out of
and demonstration projects (bottom) Air Device (WOA) by Transsolar and Foster + Partners is a vapor condensation façade that
incorporates a desiccant material to absorb humidity for reuse in irrigation (Figure 6).
Figure 5a: The Solar Enclosures
for Water Reuse (SEWR) are Here, we may recall that the integrative model is not new, but in fact has been a part of
exterior building façade modules recurring 20th century architectural debates about whether to camouflage or celebrate the
that decontaminate grey water via innards of a building. One recalls LeCorbusier’s famous hatred of tubes and his regretful conceit
ultraviolet exposure for reuse within
the building (opposite)
to hide them within his buildings; Reyner Banham’s extreme embrace of the building’s mechanical
systems to the detriment of the rest (Banham, 1969); as well as the high-tech, postmodern,
water-carrying green pipes exposed on the façade of the Centre Pompidou. These approaches
never questioned the very necessity or functioning of these systems, but they did question their
aesthetic expression and their position within theoretical discourses. In both SEWR and WOA,
as well as in many of the essays and case studies featured in this book, focus on the interaction
between environmental dynamics and architectural or landscape structure represents an interest
in integrated and hybrid systems, requiring multidisciplinary collaboration across the fields of
design, engineering, and the natural and social sciences.
20 21
Figure 5b: Diagram of the Solar Figure 6: A diagram of the principle
Enclosure for Water Reuse (SEWR) of absorption and desorption of the 4B THERMAL DISTRIBUTION
system’s water and thermal resource Water out of Air Device (WOA) Wa
Wat
ater
Vap
Va
apoor
or
CAPTURE TRANSFER DISTRIBUTION management (top)
Dire
n
EXTERIOR BUILDING MEMBRANE INTERIOR tio ) Discharge of
ct S
Building Building membrane assembly modulates Building interior benefits from: 1) Onsite water Discharge of water rp rm
Figure 5c: Section-daigram of SEWR o water vapor due
molecules and discharge he DISTRIBUTION
s WATER
olar
membrane daylight and utilizes pasteurization, production to displace/offset water depletion from 4B
interfaces disinfection, desalination/viral inactivation offsite resources 2) Heat energy production to (bottom) of heat condensation Ab xot to heat addition
Rad
solar radiation process to reduce solar heat gains on offset thermal energy requirements 3) Daylight (e n
io )
pt erm
iatio
building facade modulation to reduce lighting, electrical, and
Grey Cyan Cyan + Black cooling loads Cyan + Yellow + Black 35% Magenta, 85% Yellow + Black r
so th
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(e
Multi-Directional
Greywater Flow
00 100 100 100 100
For processed water
Concentration
Micro-Optical 4A TREATMENT TERMINUS
Water
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0 90 90 90 90
For water
molecule
Surfaces
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For agriculture
0 80 80 80 Resource Management
Thermal 80
Low Temp.
0 70 70 70 Heat Applications 70
SE
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dule
e Mid Temp.
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0 60 Solarr Waterr Treaa60
tmen
nt 60 Heat Applications
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0 50 er Bio Mechan
arri r Treatm50 50 50 se S Binding caused by
en ica
ky D (SILICAGEL) interior spatial conditions
i-B Wate t
ome
0 40 40 40 40 Van-der-Waals-Forces
lt
l
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(weak, short-range electrostatic
0 30 30 30 30
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Greywater C nd
attractive forces between uncharged
tions
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0 20
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20 20 20 interaction of p
permanent or
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plica
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0 10 ll 10 D 10 10 DISINFECTION/DESALINATION
is
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ses H2Oilding Outdoor
0 to B0u 0
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n
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ate Recharge Municipal Supplies
dia
W
rR
Ra
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eso 2. WATER PREPARATION
lar
Municipal H2O Supplies
u
So
rce M
anagement
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Notes:
ct
fle
Re
Use 50% Cyan for water as a general rule
1. WATER COLLECTION
100% grey for text
60% grey for arrows and labels use .25 pt lineweight thickness Diverse and Redundant Solutions Generate Resilience
20% for maps A collaborative approach is key to achieving effectiveness, interconnectedness, and multi-
Use Cyan + Black for desalinated water (20%) 4B THERMAL DISTRIBUTION objective optimization, as well as resilience to environmental or socio-economic changes.
A collaborative approach, which includes a range of expertise, methods, and perspectives,
Dire
implies the facility to develop a diverse set of solutions. Diversity could be manifest in terms of
for charts and graphs
ct S
1 Greywater is cycledimplementing
through SEWR systemmultiple
which heatssolutions
the at the
4A Water various
is cycled scalestreatment
through advanced of region,
proceses city, street, and building. It could
for further
olar
4B WATER DISTRIBUTION 2 water & inactivates pathogenetic matter 4B treatment i.e. dissolved solids reduction, biological nutrient removal,
use .15 pt for lines on graphs (black) 3 also manifest itself in different typologies, etc. including mechanical-hydraulic solutions, ecosystem
Rad
use 70% grey for bar graphs Processes removeservices,
contaminants inand social
greywater throughengineering
initial Waterstrategies. Deploying
is delivered to indoor a end-uses
/outdoor water range i.e. offaucets,
solutions also produces
iatio
treatment i.e. sedimentation, screening, etc. baths, kitchens, cooling systems, laundry, toilets, etc
redundancy, in the sense of a duplication of various components or functions of xa system with
n
thefrom
Greywater is recovered intention of increasing
indoor end-uses i.e. faucets, reliability.
4B Water is delivered to thermal applications i.e. thermal storage,
Use Din Light typeface on all text size 9 if it needs to be smaller use 7 baths, kitchens, cooling systems, laundry, toilets, etc. absorption cooling, domestic hot water, radiant heating etc.
4A TREATMENT TERMINUS The role of the designer is not only to glean information from the natural and social
use font size 12 for the title of the drawing/diagram sciences, but also to communicate how design methods may offer new approaches to scientific
research and practice. It is possible and important to embed design into the scientific lexicon
in order to make use of every aspect and component of the urban realm––from streetscapes
SEWR modules interrupt to buildings, gardens, and parks––in order to reconcile ecological and urban systems. For
luminous intensity of daylight,
Diffu providing useful diffuse light for instance, the essays by Chaouni and Masoud highlight the important roles that landscape,
se S interior spatial conditions
ky D urban, and architectural design can play in hydrologic analysis and projective modeling of water
ome
management (whose algorithms often include data from the fields of political science, economics,
sociology, and geography, as well as hydrology, geology, ecology, climatology, and agronomy) in
relation to sustainable urban development. These analyses are concerned with how water cycling
ATER QUALITY 3. WATER PASTEURIZATION/
DISINFECTION/DESALINATION could be made more effective with respect to ecosystem services, in terms of urban form
/VIRAL INACTIVATION (e.g., density, built vs. open and vegetated space) and construction (e.g., pervious vs.
POTABLE / DESALINATED
TREATED THREE TIMES impervious surfaces).
ion
TREATED TWICE Chaouni and Masoud also remind us that the designers have the capacity to envision new
t
dia
Ra
TREATED ONCE 2. WATER PREPARATION and unconventional scenarios and produce multi-functional solutions that meet both technical
lar
So
RAW SEWAGE / CONTAMINATED / SALINE and cultural needs, and they are also able to identify forgotten or abandoned vernacular building
ed
Also rain water, water table
ct
practices that not only have high performance attributes, but also cultural significance.
fle
1 2 3 4 5
Re
etc...
1. WATER COLLECTION
22 1 Greywater is cycled through SEWR system which heats the
2 water & inactivates pathogenetic matter
4A Water is cycled through advanced treatment proceses for further
4B treatment i.e. dissolved solids reduction, biological nutrient removal,
23
3 etc.
Processes remove contaminants in greywater through initial Water is delivered to indoor /outdoor water end-uses i.e. faucets,
treatment i.e. sedimentation, screening, etc. baths, kitchens, cooling systems, laundry, toilets, etc
Adaptive and Flexible Water Management Building upon recent publications such as Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design: Linking
Inherent to diversity and resilience is the ability to adapt to changing conditions, or to easily Theory and Practice for Sustainable Cities (Pickett, et al., 2013), Water Centric Sustainable
compensate for gaps between supply and demand. For instance, mass migration into city regions Communities: Planning Retrofitting, and Building the Next Urban Environment (Novotny, Ahern,
often exceeds the speed at which water-sanitation services are implemented. According to the and Brown, 2010), Water Sensitive Cities (Howe and Mitchell, 2012), and Resilient Sustainable
essay by Baker and Ngai, 780 million people in both urban and rural areas around the world Cities (Pearson, Newton, and Roberts, 2014), this book is ultimately interested in the design
still lack access to improved water, and 2.5 billion lack sanitation (World Health Organization and planning of sustainable cities—whereby the extreme problems that arid regions and regions
and United Nations Children’s Fund [WHO/UNICEF], 2012). Therefore, we must adapt water- lacking water-sanitation infrastructure face serve as a model for out-of-the-box solutions—and
sanitation technology and infrastructure to suit a variety of geopolitical conditions. This may result in the roles that architectural, landscape, and urban design can assume with respect to water
in independent or networked systems that are able to balance the gap in public infrastructure. management.
These may be non-governmental strategies for in situ implementation of simple, non-expert, and
low-cost technologies, whereby the individual is responsible to construct, operate, and maintain • Part 1—Water For Domestic Use
their water-sanitation needs (see essay by Pasternak and Woltering, as well as Kanchan Arsenic The first part is primarily focused on two questions: 1) How can design integrate water
Filter, Liquid Wrap, Vena Water Condenser, Isla Urbana, Down to Earth, Hiriya Landfill Recycling collection, treatment, and cycling into the home or building? and 2) What components of
Park, and Taragalte Ecolodge case studies). the building structure or materiality can facilitate these functions? This part first challenges
The term “technology” is understood as “Technology” (upper-case)—expert, advanced, designers to move beyond the complacent position of accepting conventional water
mechanical, intensive, and large-scale; but also as “technology” (lower-case)—non-expert, infrastructure and merely specifying water-conserving devices. The part encourages
individual, community-based, grassroots, and small-scale. It is important to note that the two designers to take into consideration the quality of water needed for different uses (with
approaches to technology are not mutually exclusive and certainly not strictly associated with reference to dual water systems in Israel and Australia), as well as the different governance
specific political scenarios. In other words, lower-case technology can be integrated in parallel to and social structures under which water is managed. Environmental policy expert Alon Tal
upper-case Technology as a means to increase resilience and redundancy. Likewise, Technology makes the case for the manufacturing of “new water” via desalination technologies. He uses
can be implemented at a small scale and modified from expert to non-expert practices. For the cases of Israel, Australia, and Spain to deliberate on the political and economic settings
example, Pasternak and Woltering describe how the informal (private) small-scale irrigation and changes in public opinion that made this technological shift possible. Camille Dow
sector, which operates in a more market-driven fashion, has proven to be more profitable than Baker and Tommy Ngai, of the non-governmental organization Centre for Affordable Water
more expensive formal-sector irrigation initiatives. and Sanitation Technology, represent political and economic circumstances that necessitate
Also pertaining to the idea of flexible water management is the ability to customize self-reliance. In this context, water technology is defined as expert and non-expert, public or
the chemical-biological composition of water for each farmer according to specific crop private, and multi-scale. The case studies in this part showcase built and proposed designs
requirements, discussed in Eilon Adar’s essay. Although the economic and political contexts do for water collection and treatment that could be implemented by non-expert individuals in
not necessitate complete self-reliance, the example here demonstrates the possibility of evolving conjunction with new or existing structures.
beyond the standard approach to the provision and cycling of water.
A theme that emerges here highlights the social dimension of lower-case technology. For • Part 2—Water for Agricultural Production
instance, Baker and Ngai discuss methods of community capacity building through education The second part focuses on the relationship between water and food in the context of
and training. Both Lee and Chaouni emphasize the significance of local know-how of the contemporary design interest in urban food production and the integration of crop cultivation
landscapes and ecosystems within which they have lived for centuries. Wescoat also discusses within the urban environment. In particular, it asks, what can the designer learn from the
the adaptation of reference materials with input from local expertise and site-specific data and ways in which the agricultural sector has overcome water shortages? And can city regions
proposes that vernacular water budgeting and crop cultivation could offer both technical and develop a water management strategy that meets the synergistically unified agriculture,
spatial models for contemporary design schemes. Lee and Chaouni lament the loss of memory urban design, and aquatic ecosystems? Here, designers are challenged to focus their
with respect to water in the landscape, which affects the way urban development encroaches efforts on the transition to closed-loop urban water-sanitation systems, as well as to the
upon flood plains. Both argue that solutions must be comprehensive and engage the social and systemization of new productive landscape typologies within the built environment.
cultural dimension. Otherwise they are limited in their effectiveness; without being embedded
within cultural and economic practices, lifestyles, and people’s perception and understanding of Hydrologist Eilon Adar opens the part with a call to reframe water as commodity, not a
the landscape they inhabit, they would be merely technical solutions (see also Nassauer, 2013). resource as a means to incentivize a zero-waste approach to water use in agriculture. He
The Wadi Hanifah Restoration is a case in point as to how the transformation of a landscape can delivers a fascinating account of how one unit of water can be used by multiple end users,
alter public perception, and vice versa. In fact, all the design projects featured in this book seek with high economic returns. Agronomists Dov Pasternak and Lennart Woltering describe the
to either reintroduce a historical relationship with the landscape that was lost, or generate a new introduction of efficient irrigation technologies along with the optimization of crop selection
narrative. for smallholder farms in the Sahel as a means to increase productivity and reduce labor.
They demonstrate the advantages of the informal (private) small-scale irrigation sector over
more expensive formal sector irrigation initiatives. Architect Aziza Chaouni contemplates
Structure of the Book—An Overview possible future scenarios of a designated cultural heritage oasis in southern Morocco, with
This book is organized into three parts that are specific to the relationship between water and emphasis on the influence of urban development and tourism on water management. And
human habitation, namely access to clean drinking water in the domestic environment (Part 1), finally, landscape architect Fadi Masoud offers a landscape urbanism approach for the
agricultural production (Part 2), and ecosystem services (Part 3). These subjects are recognized integration of housing, open spaces, water-sanitation infrastructure, and agriculture along
as the most basic and fundamental requirements to human and environmental health and the Jordan River basin.
to the sustainable development of urbanized regions. Each part is meant as an assembly of
diverse perspectives, socio-geographical contexts, and prevalent trends in progressive water
management solutions.
24 25
• Part 3—Water For Ecosystem Services Lazarova, V., Asano, T., Bahri, A., and Anderson J., eds. (2013). Milestones in Water Reuse: The Best
The third part focuses on design strategies for water management that regulate and Success Stories. IWA Publishing.
benefit from the limited and unpredictable availability of water––from drought to flood. In Molden, D., ed. (2007). Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water
particular, the essays and case studies are interested in the mutually beneficial outcomes Management in Agriculture. London: Earthscan/International Water Management Institute.
of integrating urban and ecological systems. The themes that emerge include the fragility
Nassauer, J. I. (2013). “Landscape as Method and Medium for the Ecological Design of Cities” in S.T.A.
of ecosystems and their interdependent culture and economy, the importance of local and
Pickett, et al. (eds.), Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design: Linking Theory and Practice for Sustainable
vernacular knowledge of the landscape for present and future design and development,
Cities, Future City 3. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. 79–98.
and the transformation of public perception of water in the city. Landscape architect Gini
Lee discusses the significance of ephemeral water holes in the barren lands of Central Novotny, V., Ahern, J., and Brown, P. (2010). Water Centric Sustainable Communities: Planning,
Australia for a diversity of species habitats and the ways in which human communities have Retrofitting and Building the Next Urban Environment. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
evolved. She argues that contemporary design and planning should be informed by an Pearson, L. J., Newton, P. W., and Roberts, P., eds. (2014). Resilient Sustainable Cities. Routledge.
interdisciplinary understanding of the history of water and human habitation in the region. Pickett, S.T.A., Cadenasso, M. L., and McGrath, B., eds. (2013). Resilience in Ecology and Urban
Landscape architect and geographer James L. Wescoat outlines the history of methods Design: Linking Theory and Practice for Sustainable Cities, Future City 3. Springer Science+Business
and tools for regulating the presence of water, from earthworks to sensor technologies. Media Dordrecht.
Drawing conclusions from case studies in India and the United Arab Emirates, Wescoat
Raskin, P., Gleick, P., Kirshen, P., Pontius, R. G., and Strzepek, K. (1997). Water Futures: Assessment
demonstrates how historical concepts can be adapted to modern water supply systems, and
of Long-range Patterns and Prospects. Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute.
how these can generate the aesthetic and experiential characteristics of a site. The case
studies provide examples of landscape design strategies that incorporate bioremediation Rijsberman, F. R. (2006). “Water Scarcity: Fact or Fiction?” Agricultural Water Management 80: 5–22.
and bioengineering techniques at various scales. Seckler, D., Amarasinghe, U., Molden, D., de Silva, R., and Barker, R. (1998). World Water Demand
and Supply, 1990 to 2025: Scenarios and Issues. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management
Institute (IWMI).
Water, Technology, and Society
Sullivan, C.A., Meigh, J. R., Giacomello, A. M., Fediw, T., Lawrence, P., Samad, M., Mlote, S., Hutton,
The three parts inform an emerging design dialogue around water, technology, and society. As C., Allan, J. A., Schulze, R. E., Dlamini, D.J.M., Cosgrove, W., Delli Priscoli, J., Gleick, P., Smout, I.,
Antoine Picon notes, water technologies and management have a systemic character as well Cobbing, J., Calow, R., Hunt, C., Hussain, A., Acreman, M. C., King, J., Malomo, S., Tate, E. L., O’Regan,
as a sociopolitical dimension as they force people to redefine theirrelationship to nature and D., Milner, S., and Steyl, I. (2003). “The Water Poverty Index: Development and Application at the
technology. Hence, this dialogue is of a transdisciplinary character, which necessitates the Community Scale.” Natural Resources Forum 27: 189–199.
inclusion of diverse perspectives, the development of a shared reference, and a broadening of
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (2012). “Glossary.” United Nations Convention to
definitions and concepts (Nassauer, 2013).
Combat Desertification. www.unccd.int/en/resources/Library/Pages/Glossary.aspx
The roles of the architect, landscape architect, and urban designer are as mediators,
USDA. “U.S. Drought 2012: Farm and Food Impacts.” United States Department of Agriculture
by virtue of design, between political and social agendas at one end and the technological
Research Service. www.ers.usda.gov/topics/in-the-news/us-drought-2012-farm-and-food-impacts.aspx#.U-
and organizational means at the other end. Landscapes, buildings and urban spaces offer
KaxagdW2Q
visual and material evidence of the natural and cultural processes that produce and change
dynamic environments. Their inherently integrative character enables the synthesis among Weilacher, U. (2008). Syntax of Landscape: The Landscape Architecture of Peter Latz and Partners.
different disciplines, decision makers, and stakeholders that is needed to affect change. As Basel, Berlin, Boston: Birkhäuser.
well, landscapes and urban spaces not only link everyday experience with other environmental WHO and UNICEF (2012). Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water: 2012 Update. Geneva: WHO/
phenomena that are invisible or not widely understood, but also mediate diverse environmental UNICEF. http://www.unicef.org/media/files/JMPreport2012.pdf
and technological functions and human perspectives (Nassauer, 2013). As such, design has the
Wong, T.H.F., and Brown, R. R. (2009). “The Water Sensitive City: Principles for Practice.” Water
capacity to shape individual behavior and perception, and bring about a cultural adaptation that
Science & Technology 60(3): 673–682.
has the potential to propel political action.
Wong, T.H.F. and Eadie, M. L. (2000). “Water Sensitive Urban Design: A Paradigm Shift in Urban
Design.” In International Water Resources Association, 10th World Water Congress: Water, the World’s
Most Important Resource. Melbourne, Australia: International Water Resources Association. 1281–1288.
References
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Banham, R. (1969). Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment. Chicago: University of Chicago
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CBC News (2012). “Drought in Central, Eastern Canada baking crops.” CBC News, July 15, 2012.
Falkenmark, M., Lundquist, J., and Widstrand, C. (1989). “Macro-scale Water Scarcity Requires Micro-
scale Approaches: Aspects of Vulnerability in Semi-arid Development.” Natural Resources Forum 13(4):
258–267.
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Khouri, G. (2006). “Integrated Water Cycle Management: An Australian Perspective.” European Water
15/16: 23–32.
Larson, E. K., Earl, S., Hagen, E. M., Hale, R., Hartnett, H., McCrackin, M., McHale, M., and Grimm, N.
B. (2013). “Beyond Restoration and into Design: Hydrologic Alterations in Aridland Cities.” in S.T.A. Pickett
et al. (eds.), Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design: Linking Theory and Practice for Sustainable Cities,
Future City 3. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. 183–210.
26 27
Water, Technology, and Society:
A Historical Overview
Antoine Picon
The following is an edited transcript
of Antoine Picon’s keynote lecture
delivered at the “Out of Water” conference,
Thursday, April 1, 2011.
The management of water is among the oldest technological challenges to confront humankind.
Its terms have been strikingly variable from one region of the globe to another. Whereas the
abundance of water was often a problem for Northern Europeans in past centuries, it was its
scarcity that represented the major obstacle to development in countries belonging to the dry
belt, such as those in the Middle East. In any given region in the world, water could be at once
abundant in certain conditions and for certain uses, and scarce in others.
What can we learn by looking at the relationship between water and technology from a broad
historical perspective? Given the diversity of conditions, the topic is inexhaustible. Certain
themes and perspectives must be privileged, and so two major historical threads are outlined
in this essay.
The first concerns the systemic character of water management. From very ancient times
onwards, water has been associated with technologies that possessed a decidedly systemic
dimension. Until the 18th century, the European technological system as a whole could even
be described as water-centered. History shows that, at times, profound crises disrupted these
systems and technologies and forced them to evolve. From this perspective, our present-day
incertitude is perhaps an early sign of a transition from current types of systems to new ones, the
characteristics of which have barely begun to appear. One of the ambitions of this book may be
to contribute to a better comprehension of these emerging features.
Yet, technology is only part of the problem. The second historical thread concerns the
intricate links between technology’s societal and political influences. Dating back to the most
ancient periods, hydraulic systems have been the products and mechanisms of society and
politics as much as of technology in a narrow sense. These social and political aspects are among
the greatest challenges that we are facing today. Obstacles to technology and technological
innovation are, of course, part of the problem, but the most pressing issues have to do with
technology’s socio-political implications. Following science and technology scholars such as
Bruno Latour, the term “politics” here is used in a broader-than-usual sense. Water possesses
a political dimension because it is a public resource and a public affair, and above all because its
management and use force people to redefine their relations. We are definitely in need of a new
politics of water.
Among the Oldest Technological Challenges
Management of water plays a seminal role in the development of technological expertise. In
Europe, for instance, water management was among the key domains of early engineering.
Figure 1: Pierre-Paul Riquet presenting Besides the design and realization of waterways—the true high-tech enterprises of the
to the King’s envoys his project for
the Canal du Midi at the watershed
Renaissance and 17th century—engineers also mobilized the power of water for fortification
between the Mediterranean and the purposes. We tend to forget today how defense was, in many cases, based as much on water
Atlantic, after a 19th-century engraving as on earthworks and masonry walls. Such was the case with the voluntary floods of the
28 29
Figure 2: Pierre-Denis Martin, Vue de
la Machine Marly, view of the Marly
hydraulic engine, 1783
Figure 3: Turbulences created by
bridge piers (opposite)
Netherlands, employed to resist the invasion of the French troops of Louis XIV in 1672—a tactic although construction involved the death of a few thousand workers. Despite the colossal
that epitomizes the defensive importance of water. works, which also included pumps, reservoirs, channels, and an aqueduct, the Sun King was
Until the mid-18th century, engineering was often presented as a discipline which was never able to achieve his ultimate goal.
primarily focused on hydraulic problems; in fact, it was commonly known as “architecture These two cases reveal that waterworks are seldom simple and linear. Even a canal requires
hydraulique”(hydraulic architecture). In Charles D’Aviler’s influential late-17th century multiple reservoirs and channels in order to supply it with water, reinforcing the systemic
dictionary of architectural terms, engineering appears under this denomination, as a sub-branch character of water management. The problems raised by water can seldom be apprehended in
of architecture. Architecture Hydraulique is also the title of the 18th century’s most important simple terms, such as overabundance or scarcity. The most common condition is actually that
engineering treatise, by Bélidor, which was concerned with the art of conveying, distributing, the right kind of water is not where it should be, which seems to be more the case today than
and managing water for all of life’s needs. ever before.
In the context of Northern Europe, one would readily suppose that the main problem was On the other hand, Middle Eastern engineers, whether Arab or Persian, were always
the abundance of water, rather than its scarcity. Traditional engineering design, such as that of confronted with scarcity. It is worth noting that in the Muslim world, water management was
Dutch polders and masonry bridges, seemed to evince a pressing need to resist the abundant also at the core of emerging engineering competence, and for centuries was more advanced than
flow of water. However, even in Europe, water was neither abundant nor scarce; rather, the issue its western counterpart. The realizations of the Cairo Nilometer and the Corduan Noria bear
was if it was where, and when, it was needed. testimony to the level of sophistication, far before the technological rise of Western Europe.
Take, for example, water canalization in Europe; for many years, the sole, rather ineffective, Past these early moments, it is important to note the long-term influence of hydraulic
method to maintain water availability year-round was to waterproof the canals with clay. In considerations and models on the engineering field, far beyond hydraulics and water
northern France, for instance, canals were often dry throughout the summer and fall months. management proper. This includes the conception of flow within modern and contemporary
Moreover, the most strategic canals linked different river basins and watersheds, which meant engineering thought. This influence emerged during the 18th century and onward, when the
that canals had to circumvent the ridges that separated them. Consequently, canals had to be laws of hydrodynamics were beginning to be better understood at both the theoretical and
designed to reach high elevations. Yet the higher the canal section, the more difficult it was to practical levels. For example, a relatively new idea at the time concerned the study of turbulence
locate a water source. This was the main difficulty for the Canal du Midi of 17th-century France, generated by bridge piers (Figure 3).
which was considered at the time to be one of the masterpieces of French engineering (Figure
1). At one of its highest elevations, the canal passes through a plateau, where water supply is
very limited.
The most spectacular expression of this relative scarcity of water is perhaps Versailles, where
Louis XIV had envisioned a spectacular display of waterworks. One of the major works built
to supply water to Versailles was the Marly machine. Considered one of the most impressive
hydraulic engines built in early modern Europe, the machine had 14 paddlewheels, each about
38ft in diameter, turned by the Seine to power more than 250 pumps, all in order to send
water uphill (Figure 2). Another massive waterworks, a giant aqueduct, was never completed,
30 31
Modern engineering generalized the notion of flow, applying it to many elements both Figure 4: Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe
natural and human—from water in canals, to goods in the circulation systems of nations (Figure Ducros, Cascata delle Marmore,
Marmore’s Fall, Terni, Italy, circa 1785
4). Simultaneously, stagnation and stagnating water became synonymous with decay and (opposite)
unhealthy conditions. This was a spectacular inversion from the classical notion of optimum,
which was static in essence; this is seen in medieval theology, where God is immobile and
mobility is associated with imperfection. Dynamics became the norm, and with modern
hydraulic models, strange ideas arose, such as the claim by Parmentier that the water that flows
out of Paris is cleaner than when it entered the city—in direct proportion, paradoxically, to all
the garbage thrown into it. As he explains in his 1787 dissertation “Sur la Nature des Eaux de la
Seine”, water is purified by the movement given to it by what is thrown into it.
From the 18th century on, fluidic models have been found in all types of domains, from
material engineering to network management. They are at the core of modern material physics,
which is based on the assumption that forces literally flow in structures, and that strains are
analogous to pressures. This is among the reasons for the rediscovery in the 18th century of
the Gothic, where constructive techniques are based on fluidic conceptions of effort. This, too,
remains characteristic of engineering thought. In the French case, this fluidic model permeates
the general layout of the Haussmannian city, as well as the design of its gardens. Such is the case
with Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, which was designed by engineers in a way that clearly bears the
mark of a fluidic conception of the garden.
Today, however, one of the main challenges has to do with a very different notion: flows are
not infinite. Thus, new conservation imperatives have arisen. To progress from a monomania
with flow to a more complex understanding of hydraulic models, we may need to recapture a
sense of the meditative character that was associated with water in so many traditional cultures.
We must think about how we can reconceive water circulation while also rediscovering the lure
of unproductive stagnation, which was not of interest to the rational, industrial mind.
Hydraulic Systems
The most important aspect of water management is its strong systemic turn; in other words,
water technologies are strongly interdependent on each other. They constitute a coherent whole,
linked by numerous feedback loops. This is especially evident in the case of irrigation, one of
the first large-scale technologies ever invented, with origins that can be traced back to the sixth
millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Irrigation, and hydraulic works more generally,
are principally about preserving water, which largely accounts for the systemic character of the
technologies involved. In the case of irrigation, its relevance throughout history is also striking.
A classic example is that of the shaduf, a mechanism for raising water, consisting of a pivoted
pole with a bucket at one end and a counterweight at the other. Though it first appeared around
1700 B.C. in Egypt, it was still in use when the French invaded the country in 1798.
For centuries, water management techniques represented the core of the technologies in
use by most societies; one could say that most traditional technological systems were, in fact,
water-based. This is quite clear in the Middle East, but it also became the case in Western Europe,
in a number of decisive steps. The Middle Ages in Western Europe were marked by a decisive
water moment: the invention of the watermill to power the engine. Until at least the end of the
18th century, watermills remained the fundamental source of energy for all types of artisanal
and proto-industrial fabrications. The importance of water as a source of power led to a very
different manufacturing geography than the one that would prevail after the first industrial
revolution; mountainous regions, such as the Alps, were often highly industrial because of the
presence of numerous fast-flowing streams. Yet, this geography would again be radically altered
by the development of the steam engine and railway (Figure 5).
Since the start of their discipline, historians of technology have been very aware of the
systemic dimension of hydraulic technologies. It played an essential role in their early attempts
to define precisely what a technological system was. In his 1934 Technics and Civilization,
Lewis Mumford famously divided the evolution of technology into three distinct phases:
“eotechnical,” “paleotechnical,” and “neotechnical.” The eotechnical phase is marked largely by
early attempts at rational uses of water, particularly of its energetic power.
32 33
Figure 5: Watt steam engine, after the
drawings made in England by Augustin
de Betancourt y Molina, circa 1788
Figure 6: Nicolas and Jean-Baptiste
Raguenet, Joust of Sailors Between
the Bridge of Notre-Dame and the
Bridge au Change in Paris, 1752
(opposite)
A few decades later, the founding father of modern French history of technology, Bertrand
Gille, framed this evolution in terms of two different periods. He characterized the first as
the period of classical and traditional technological systems, marked by the predominance of
water, and the second as the period of the industrial system, beginning with the first industrial
revolution of the 19th century. For Gille, the two essential components of the classical
technological systems were water and wood. Water was the main source of energy, and its
presence or absence determined the possibility of large-scale production and its geography.
Water also acted as the main means of transportation, as there were very few roads until the
18th century, and navigation through Europe was mainly on water. The other element, wood,
was by far the most important construction material, before brick or stone, and was also the main
combustible. This meant that the productive geography of Europe was drawn at the intersection
of water and wood resources. For Gille, water and wood technologies were constitutive of a
system, because they were also highly interdependent and interconnected.
Ultimately, this water-wood system reached a limit towards the beginning of the 18th
century, for a series of reasons. The main one was that its inputs and outputs were limited. There
was only so much hydraulic power one could harness using waterwheels, and wood was also
becoming depleted. For Gille, the first industrial revolution saw this fundamental water-wood
coupling replaced by a triadic coal-iron-steam structure. This triad functioned in a series of
feedback loops: coal fed the steam engines, which enabled the production of iron, from which
steam engines were made, and they, in turn, made extensive coal mining possible by enabling
deep underground water pumping. These three elements brought with them a whole new series
of feedback loops and ultimately led to a totally different system, for which the geography was
also very different. Coal, iron, and the steam engine were also responsible for the two major
technological transformations of the time: the great textile mills of the Midlands, and the
railway, leading to what has often been characterized as the transportation revolution.
This shift appeared to be the starting point of a massive change that would deprive water of
its central technological role. However, in recent decades, historians of technology have become
more nuanced in their assessment of how rapid the change was. First, water still continued to
play an essential role in production and transportation for a very long time. It is worth noting
that the industrial revolution itself was a revolution first linked to canal building rather than
railways. This was, for instance, the case in England where, prior to the development of
railways, a dense network of waterways and canals was developed from the mid-18th century
onwards. This English waterway network included some remarkable engineering works, like
the Pontcysyllte navigable aqueduct, completed in 1805. Waterways were just as important in
North America, where canals were key to the development of the cotton economy in the South
and played a crucial role in the growth and development of the northeast, as in the case of the
Erie Canal.
34 35
More generally, the transition between systems was far more gradual than what either and gradually replaced by a very different one. This process of change in Paris lasted for 20 – 30
Mumford or Gille had in mind. In France for instance, steam engine power exceeded hydraulic years, and quickly became emblematic of European cities in general. It also marked the emergence
power relatively late, in the 1860s. While the transition between systems took a long time, it is of a key notion in contemporary engineering and infrastructure thought: the network.
what happened during this transition that is important. Water began to lose its centrality in the To return to the influence of hydraulic systems in modern and contemporary engineering
19th century, but it did not yet lose its importance. Furthermore, spectacular progresses and thought, the notion of network is among the ways in which this influence has exerted itself.
innovations were still made, making hydraulic energy far more efficient than in the past. For The notion has a definite hydraulic origin, relating to the idea of circulation in the body. At the
instance, with the 19th century came the invention of the turbine, which came to play a major onset, urban networks were literally supposed to irrigate the body of the city. This new regime
role in the development of electricity. The turbine also led to one of the major uses of water in went hand in hand with a series of new problems, such as water quality control and epidemic
the 20th century: the production of electricity with hydro-powered dams. prevention. The cholera epidemics of the 19th century played an essential role in triggering
The turbine, then, provides a good transition towards the return of major hydraulic work, this trend. In his famous map of London, Doctor John Snow illustrated a cholera attack in the
led by the development of electricity. Examples of such large-scale hydraulic works were to be Broad Street and Golden Square area in 1854. Snow mapped the houses struck by the disease
found everywhere throughout the 20th century, from France’s Barrage du Sautet on the River and suggested that the contamination of a specific public pump was responsible for its spread.
Drac, built in the 1930s, to incomparable achievements like the Tennessee Valley Authority and Accordingly, the pump was removed, and the plague stopped. Snow’s discoveries about cholera
the Hoover Dam. In some ways, water itself became less important, but dealing with it was still led to a radical redesign of wastewater management in London. The new networked urban
an absolutely essential problem. system for water functioned well for a large part of the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, however,
If we consider waterworks in the context of landscape architecture, we can address we are likely on the eve of its demise, or at least of a major transformation for water in the city.
the overall systemic character of what Bertrand Gille called the classical period and how it We can identify a few crucial factors related to the transformation of the networked water
connected intimately with landscape. For centuries, hydraulic works had shaped landscape in model discussed here. First, we have a growing desire to live in close contact with water, which
a slow and methodical way. Irrigation techniques were emblematic of this patient remodeling, challenges the place to which it was typically assigned at the dawn of the industrial era. The
applied in a constant negotiation with the natural elements. In cases such as that of the famous contemporary obsession with waterways is evident all over the world; for example, in people’s
Balinese terracing culture, the overall remodeling could involve extensive, massive reshaping, tendency to migrate to the world’s coasts, which raises difficult questions concerning flooding
but nevertheless its methods are respectful of a certain equilibrium between man’s constructs and sea level rise.
and nature, outlining a strong landscape dimension. This equilibrium had been maintained Second, traditional networks tend toward dysfunction. For example, a large amount of water
despite the development of engineering during the Renaissance and the desire to overcome is lost due to poor state of pipes and the difficulty of maintenance and repair. In France, which
the limitation of nature. Eighteenth-century engineers often saw themselves as gardeners of is far from the worst case, the loss of water averages around 25% in most urban water networks,
the territory. At the time, engineering students studying at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées reaching levels as high as 41% in cities like Nîmes. All kinds of catastrophes are generated and
continued to employ a pervasive presence of water and waterworks, from garden canals and amplified by factors linked to waterproofing and network management. These issues have
fountains to harbors. Interestingly, 18th-century Ponts et Chaussées engineers were taught called into question the viability of large, integrated urban networks as the sole model and have
landscape drawing. Later, with industrialization, this equilibrium was broken, and it has spurred the emergence of smaller feedback loops, which work at a lesser distance and with a
disappeared completely in the brutality of the current relationship between infrastructure and higher degree of interaction between urban and technological processes. For example, in the
landscape. This approach to infrastructural building can, of course, evoke sublime effects, yet Hammarby Sjöstad district of Stockholm, tests are being done on a new model, which includes
ultimately it results in unresolved problems. Today’s hydraulic works still shape the landscape, small-scale, interactive feedback loops among various types of networks. We may, once again, be
but, as is evident in projects such as the Three Gorges Dam in China, they do so with sublimity on the eve of a major mutation in the way water is managed in cities.
rather than with the traditional negotiation between nature and man-made work. Negotiation is
certainly among the skills that we may have to learn again. Water management in arid climates
could serve as a laboratory for this rediscovery. A Political and Cultural Problem
The use of water has a clear political character. The politics of water exists beyond the narrow
confines of ordinary political life. Its politics is what tends to generate social relations. Its politics
Water and Cities is what may be a subject of concern and even disagreement between people. Its politics is also
In cities also, water was, from early on, managed in systemic ways. A striking example of this was what tends to define and redefine individuals and their relation to the collective. Here, “political”
studied by French historian of technology André Guillerme, who showed how overwhelmingly is taken in the sense given to it by contemporary thinkers like Ulrich Beck or Bruno Latour. The
present water was in the medieval and classical-age cities of northern France. Guillerme impact of risk and catastrophe is an integral part of this.
describes a multiplicity of “little Venices.” In a series of plans, he compares the center of Venice Why does water have a political dimension? Throughout its history, the management of
to those of various northern French cities to illustrate how hydraulic systems were not only water has generated social relations. First of all, water is often rare, difficult to access, or erratic,
important for transportation, but also for industry and production, like that of tanning. Water and this entails coordination among different groups regarding its use. For instance, in 19th-
was truly a complex urban system, situated at the locus where public and private realms met. century France, the function of water use coordination was given to the “police des cours d’eau”
The 18th-century Seine in Paris is a good example; houses sat on public bridges, so that the (water flow police), as well as to the bridge and highway administrations. Water is political,
Seine was in a certain respect their backyard (Figure 6). This is a relationship that is likely to not only in moments of scarcity but also in moments of abundance and inundation, when land
seem contradictory today. must be protected. The Dutch were seen as a political model because of their strong collective
At the dawn of industrialization, a series of changes occurred in Europe. First, water was hydraulic management. This became one of the sources of inspiration for the 19th-century
made less immediately accessible, less familiar, more monumental and public. In Paris, this was French reformer Frédéric Le Play. Having studied the polder flood-protection system, Le Play
a process that began with the destruction of houses on bridges, followed by the construction of was convinced that this was the model to follow in order to reconcile modern technology
embankments along the river. Water was also increasingly assimilated into technical resources with the collective spirit of ancient times. Hydraulics would remain an important subject for
and harnessed through technologies. Simultaneously, new challenges arose, such as the need Le Play throughout his days as a social reformer. Later in his career, his philosophy became
to deliver more and better-quality water. This led to constructions such as the Ourcq canal, instrumental in promoting social geography, in which factors like the abundance and scarcity of
completed during the Napoleonic period. In essence, the old system was completely destroyed water played a definite role.
36 37
Figure 7: Bathroom of the well-to-do in Le Play’s approach is in striking contrast with one of the most famous attempts to connect
the United States, early 20th century hydraulics with politics: the notion of hydraulic empire, also known as hydraulic despotism. The
terms were introduced by German-American historian Karl August Wittfogel in his 1957 book
Oriental Despotism to characterize regimes whose strict control over access to water was their key
to power. One of Wittfogel’s most popular assertions is that several societies, including Ancient
Egypt and Mesopotamia, established monopolies over water control in order to overcome
water scarcity. This notion is still found in writings today, but like any oversimplifying thesis,
it has been challenged. For example, Joseph Needham has argued that such political practices
were not in fact adopted in China, as Wittfogel claimed. Nevertheless, the notion suggests an
intersection between hydraulic technology and hydraulic management. One could even argue
that technology and management are one and the same in the case of hydraulics. The diversity
of perspectives outlined above suggests that technology is not deterministic, but that it raises
issues that are political and need to be addressed as such. Regardless, one thing is certain: water
management is typically aligned with a certain degree of centralization, whether despotic in
nature or not. Hydraulic works are often linked to the existence of a powerful bureaucracy.
Emerging Challenges
Three pressing issues arise in relation to this centralized control of water. The first pertains to
the ongoing tendency to privatize the management of water, including the provision of water
services and sanitation. Bureaucracy used to be an instrument of the state, whether despotic or
democratic; it is unclear what the state of water management would be following the increasing
privatization of resources and services across the world. Would we see a new kind of hydraulic
despotism in the name of global capitalism?
The second issue relates to the internationalization of water issues, a process that has been
underway since the realization of giant infrastructural-scale works such as the Suez and Panama
canals. Dealing with projects at the scale of the watershed increasingly requires the resolution of
cross-border conflicts by policy makers, diplomats, and planners.
The last, and perhaps most insidious, issue has to do with the increasing individualism of
today’s lifestyles and the ensuing challenges. One aspect of globalization is that it has created
a short circuit between individual behaviors and collective problems; the issue of water is a
representative facet of this situation. Traditionally, water was seen as a large-scale and collective
challenge; however, today, we are starting to see it as the object of a new dialectic between the
individual and the collective. Toilets, for example, constantly remind us of how individualized
and personal the question of water is today. The bathroom is fascinating, since it is the first
technological room, far surpassing the computer room or kitchen in seniority (Figure 7). It is
the first room where one’s naked body encounters a large network of the city as a whole. The
bathroom is in a strange place, at the direct interface between the individual and collective
faces of water. This is also where our individuality and subjectivity in society has been shaped
and reshaped. We are probably again on the eve of a new reshaping. As Ulrich Beck and others
have pointed out, many contemporary issues can be effectively dealt with only if one takes into
account individual behaviors. This is perhaps a true challenge for hydraulic technologies that
used to rely heavily on bureaucratic coordination.
Beyond the realm of collective action, water technologies have always possessed a cultural
character. Various historians of technology have drawn connections between the pervasive
presence of slow and continuous hydraulic movement and a cyclical vision of time and human
history. For these historians, the rapid, nervous, linear movement of modern steam engines
marked the advent of a totally different system of cultural representations. Another set of
cultural determinations has to do with the everyday use of water and how it has shaped our
modern identity, from the possibility of running water in the kitchen to the use of domestic
swimming pools, and from the Victorian bathroom to today’s Jacuzzi. This is part of what is at
stake today; we face not only a political but also a cultural adaptation.
38 39
1 Introduction: Beyond Low-Flush Toilets
WATER Despite the staggering figures of water shortage worldwide, the provision of water within
the domestic environment is a problem that is not nearly addressed enough in architecture,
FOR landscape architecture, and urban design. Whereas the topics of food security and
environmental management, addressed in the following chapters, have become integral to design
DOMESTIC USE practice, the technical aspects of collecting, treating, and delivering water still remain within
the purview of science and engineering, while issues of water governance fall under policy and
economics.
At the building scale, projects attempting to address water scarcity in arid climates typically
focus on water use and conservation standards (e.g., LEED, BREEAM). These performance
benchmarks center primarily on the specification of water-saving devices, such as low-flush
toilets, toilet dams, low-flow showers and appliances, combined toilet and sink systems, smart
meters, and real-time water consumption feedback devices. The implementation of water
conservation devices within the home has proven to decrease domestic water use by 30% (U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, 2014). That said, in many cities the reuse of wastewater, rain,
or surface runoff within buildings is disallowed due to health concerns. Reuse in irrigation is
somewhat more acceptable, particularly in agriculture, but still not a routine practice within the
urban environment. The main question that this chapter raises is what the role of design could be
in shaping water technology and management as it relates to the domestic environment and the
individual user, beyond merely specifying water-conserving products.
It is important to first recognize the political context within which water flows through the
urban environment. As such, the two essays and five case studies in this chapter depict two
opposite, rather extreme, ends of water management. One is set within a context where the
supply of water is deemed a human right and a public service and, thus, water and sanitation
infrastructure is centrally governed and its quality controlled. The other is where water and
sanitation infrastructure is non-existent. The latter context is typically found in the developing
world, where tenuous economic and socio-political conditions frequently form the backdrop to a
broad absence of public infrastructure, necessitating alternative approaches such as self-reliance
and building capacity of local institutions and communities. Despite the contrast, both positions
are first and foremost motivated by human health and survival at the most fundamental level.
Water is life.
Two Water Scarcity Scenarios
Hot, arid regions that have water-sanitation infrastructure no longer rely on water conservation as
the single answer to increasing demand caused by population growth and persistent droughts.
As Tal describes in his essay “Technical Optimism as an Antidote to Water Scarcity,” over the
last 20 years arid nations such as Israel, Australia, and Spain have been taking bolder steps to
actually “produce” or “manufacture” drinking-quality water with technologies for desalination of
seawater and brackish groundwater. Critiques of these countries’ approaches focus on sole
reliance on a single mechanical technology, failure to diversify solutions and build in redundancy,
emphasis on supply-side solutions that encourage wasteful consumption habits, and the valid
concern around the adverse environmental impacts on marine biology, carbon emissions, and
high energy dependency. However, the economics behind desalination outshine what are
deemed as “surmountable obstacles.”
Tal’s essay, as its title suggests, represents a growing confidence in “upper-case”
Technology’s capacity to overcome water scarcity (see Introduction for a discussion of “lower-
case” technology vs. “upper-case” Technology). In all cases, the political, economic, and
technological setting has allowed for the robust growth of the desalination industry. Despite
public debates around associated environmental issues, Tal states that “recent experience in
several countries offers an empirical basis for assessing the potential of desalination, which,
along with wastewater reuse, might obviate the projected water shortages of the future.”
Therefore, with today’s advanced technology, water is in fact “a renewable resource more than
ever before.”
40
40 41
The opposite scenario is a complete lack of water-sanitation infrastructure, a scenario that, as 1. According to a 2006 United Nations 2. The use of water for outdoor employing the well-known principle of vapor condensation. Consequently, the total available
Baker and Ngai discuss in their essay, currently affects over 780 million people. This condition survey carried out in 177 countries, irrigation accounts for most of the water is increased. The second principle involves the allocation of non-potable quality water to
women and girls spend as much as potable water used in North America,
is not exclusively associated with arid climates, but describes more broadly a prolonged state of five or six hours per day fetching water while the largest amount of water
various household uses, such as toilet flushing or irrigation (Side Note 2) through a dual water
water scarcity due to contamination. In such conditions, most evident is the unclear distinction (a total of 40 billion hours collecting indoors is used for toilet flushing supply system, thus reserving potable water for only such uses as necessitate drinking-quality
between drinking water and wastewater. Typically, if water infrastructure is missing, so is water each year), keeping girls (Mayer, et al., 1999). According to water. Consequently, the pressure on diminishing potable water resources is minimized, and at
sanitation, and vice versa. Two and a half million people have no access to sanitation services. out of school. The lack of working the U.S. Environmental Protection the same time, the adverse effects of wastewater discharge are mitigated.
toilets in schools also deters girls Agency, irrigation of residential
Two point two million deaths every year, mostly children under 5, are attributed to diarrheal The idea that there is not just one water but a gradient of water qualities opens up new
from attending school, thus greatly landscapes accounts for more than a
diseases due to ingestion of contaminated water. The collection and treatment of wastewater limiting opportunities to improve their third of residential water use—more opportunities and trajectories for design. We would like to point to several case study
is therefore paramount to the improvement of drinking water quality and cannot be considered circumstances (Barlow, 2010). than nine billion gallons per day (U.S. examples that offer integrated design strategies to link regional water management and large-
an independent problem. Importantly, the lack of both water and sanitation services has a direct Environmental Protection Agency,
scale water technology with opportunities for design development at the building, site, or
corollary to underdevelopment and poverty (Side Note 1). 2013)—while households located in
arid regions such as Arizona use up material systems scale.
Baker and Ngai’s essay discusses non-governmental strategies for in situ implementation of to 70% of potable water for irrigation
simple, non-expert, and low-cost “lower-case” technologies. The key principle is empowerment (Arizona Department of Water
of local population and organizations through education and training, and encouragement of Resources, 2014). Dual Water-Supply Systems
self-reliance, ownership, and leadership. While this may seem an insurmountable task, the essay Israel and Australia represent the most progressive examples of an implemented dual water
cites the example of CAWST (which Baker co-founded), a non-governmental organization (NGO) system at both regional and neighborhood scales. Israel recycles more than 75% of all municipal
which projects to help 20 million people with better water and sanitation by 2020. wastewater across the country for reuse in agriculture (see pp.142–145). In addition to a long-
Baker and Ngai describe a process of disseminating ideas and inventions that would standing culture of water savings (e.g., use of low-flush toilets) and restrictions (e.g., prohibiting
otherwise remain strictly within academic institutions. They do so by acting as a two-way bridge lawn irrigation during droughts), as well as desalination of 500 million m3 of seawater per year,
between universities and research labs on one hand and with local NGOs and community this has resulted in massive savings of potable water. The purple-colored treated wastewater
leaders on the other. The local groups ensure widespread adoption of new solutions and pipes, distinct from the blue potable water pipes, are often seen in use also in municipal parks
practices, which in turn provides product testing and feedback to the universities. and gardens.
Several case studies characterize the type of decentralized/distributed solutions that could Such advances in water engineering and agriculture have yet to influence the ways in which
address the lack or failure of water infrastructure. The Kanchan Arsenic Filter and Liquid Wrap architecture, landscape, and urban design are conceived, regulated, and practiced in Israel.
technologies offer affordable and simple solutions to remove contaminants from unregulated New projects, let alone existing ones, do not frequently incorporate surface runoff collection for
water supplies. The former is typically built within a home; the latter is a portable and wearable irrigation in park systems and urban gardens, nor do most buildings incorporate the reuse of
vessel. Another small-scale device, the Vena Water Condenser, produces water from vapor treated wastewater for toilet flushing and other such uses where potable water is not required.
through condensation. Isla Urbana and Down to Earth both collect rainwater and surface runoff, In Australia, Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD), part of an overarching concept called
in barrels and underground cisterns respectively. These small-scale interventions, ranging in whole-of-water-cycle management, is intended to integrate the management of waterways,
size from human- to household-scale devices, can be multiplied across a community, ultimately groundwater, stormwater, wastewater, and potable water supply as a comprehensive urban
creating health or social impacts well beyond the individual appliance, as conveyed in the Isla design strategy. The national water recycling guidelines include regulations for stormwater and
Urbana and Down to Earth case studies. wastewater reuse and have consequently reduced domestic potable water consumption by 40%.
The common drawbacks associated with such distributed, off-the-grid, do-it-yourself solutions For example, Australia’s Rouse Hill Recycled Water Network System Plan (Lazarova, et al.,
concern lack of quality control, inability to regulate the level of contaminants in the sourced 2013) serves as a pioneering example for new developments. A suburb of Sydney, the Rouse Hill
water, and unreliable commitment of individuals over the long-term. Nonetheless, despite their Project Area has implemented a dual water supply system. Two parallel systems are provided,
unquestionable benefits, centralized water infrastructure systems are also criticized today for a potable supply for household uses such as drinking, cooking, and washing, and a recycled
supply for toilet flushing and outdoor uses like garden watering.
1) their lack of capacity to withstand and adapt to extreme weather events and environmental
crises, 2) the prerequisite of functioning governance, 3) negative impacts on existing ecological These groundbreaking projects, however, still only operate within the realm of hydraulic
systems, 4) lack of integration with public, or civic space, and 5) the fact that where water infrastructure such as the pipe network, and miss the opportunity to rethink the potential that the
infrastructure is a public service, built projects habitually rely on the assumption that faucets, building and landscape could contribute at a site scale to increasing the overall water portfolio.
showerheads, hoses, and sprinklers are connected to a limitless piped supply of water. The subsequent parts offer a range of design strategies for capturing and reusing water.
A Gradient of Water Qualities Increasing the Overall Water Portfolio
The two scenarios are generally representative of the predominant conditions and approaches With nearly 15,000 facilities worldwide, often located along coastlines, desalination plants have
to water management and technology around the world today. But rather than perceive them in an enormous footprint in the landscape. Public pressure around environmental mitigation and
opposition, perhaps a more productive approach would concurrently employ multi-scale solutions coastal integration has changed the approach to the design of desalination plants in recent years.
that comprise both expert “Technology” and non-expert “technology” as a multifaceted and Landscape and architecture play a key role. The Victoria Desalination Project (Australian National
redundant (fail-safe) urban design strategy. Construction Review, 2013), the largest project in Australia, produces 150 billion liters of water
The common thread between the essays and case studies points to two key design per year, and provides an exemplary precedent for a multidisciplinary collaboration between
principles: diversifying water sources, and allocating diverse water qualities to a variety of use engineering, design, and ecology.
requirements. In other words, in addition to conventional fresh water resources (e.g., lakes, Driven by goals to minimize the ecological footprint and maintain the integrity of Victoria’s
rivers, and aquifers), non-potable water sources (e.g., seawater, contaminated surface runoff, prime nature tourism, the project’s ambition was to seamlessly integrate the desalination plant
greywater, and vapor) have become viable by means of a variety of treatment processes, into the landscape. Thus, the project team included green roof designers, architects, ecologists,
including the relatively new reverse osmosis, but also the traditional sand filter and technologies and structural, hydrologic, and civil engineers. The roof of the biggest building on site (28,900m2)
is the key aspect of the design. Made up of 438 individual panels installed at 23 different angles,
42 43
the roof is designed to mimic the undulating sand dunes in the surrounding environment. The References
green roof vegetation comprises around 100,000 plants of 25 different species of indigenous Arizona Department of Water Resources. (2014). “Residential Home.” www.azwater.gov/AzDWR/
ground covers, tussocks, and low-lying shrubs (Growing Green Guide). The project is also one StatewidePlanning/Conservation2/Residential/Residential_Home2.htm
of the largest ecological restoration projects undertaken in Victoria. The 263-ha site includes
Australian National Construction Review. (2013). Victorian Desalination Project. www.ancr.com.au/
a 38-ha area dedicated to the buildings of the desalination plant, and a 225-ha area dedicated
victorian_desalination_project.pdf
to ecological restoration. This ecological restoration area includes constructed dunes intended
to provide visual and acoustic insulation, as well as wetlands, coastal and swampy woodlands, Barlow, Maude. Our Right to Water: A People’s Guide to Implementing the United Nations’ Recognition
and new habitat for local fauna. Millions of trees, shrubs, grasses, and other endemic coastal of the Right to Water and Sanitation. The Council of Canadians. http://www.canadians.org/sites/default/
scrubland species are being replanted across the site’s open spaces. files/publications/RTW-intl-web.pdf
An emerging area in the fields of architecture and building science involves the engineering Dyson, A, Vollen, J., Mistur, M., Stark, P., Malone, K., and Gindlesparger, M. (2012). U.S. Patent
of building façade systems to utilize their modular framework and interface with air and sunlight Application No. 0234471: Solar Enclosure for Water Reuse. Washington, DC: United States Patent Office.
in order to collect or recycle water. The Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE) Growing Green Guide. “Victorian Desalination Project Green Roof.”www.growinggreenguide.org/
at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) is currently developing a new façade system called victorian-case-studies/victorian-desalination-project-green-roof/
Solar Enclosures for Water Reuse (SEWR). SEWR aims to conserve water through the Lazarova, V., Asano, T., Bahri, A., and Anderson J., eds. (2013). Milestones in Water Reuse: The Best
development of a solar-collecting building envelope that transforms both solar irradiation and Success Stories. IWA Publishing.
greywater into functional resources for reuse. The SEWR building envelope includes arrays of
Mayer, P. W., DeOreo, W. B., Opitz, E. M., Kiefer, J. C., Davis, W. Y., Dziegielewski, B., and Nelson, J.
interconnected solar-driven greywater treatment modules. These modules provide both interior
O. (1999). Residential End Uses of Water. Denver, CO: AWWA Research Foundation and American Water
shading and passive daylighting through their optical surfacing. On-site water and thermal
Works Association. www.waterrf.org/PublicReportLibrary/RFR90781_1999_241A.pdf
resource management intersect at the point of tertiary water treatment; ultraviolet light initiates
photocatalytic activity to decontaminate and heat greywater for reuse within the building. End U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2013). Reduce Your Outdoor Water Use. www.epa.gov/
uses range from drinking and bathing to toilet flushing, irrigation, cooling, and heating. The WaterSense/docs/factsheet_outdoor_water_use_508.pdf
SEWR system exemplifies the architectural integration of conventional and isolated plumbing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2014). “Conserving Water.” http://www.epa.gov/greenhomes/
with mechanical and electrical building components (Dyson, et al., 2012). Greywater treatment ConserveWater.htm
is made visible through a highly articulated and aestheticized design. The foregrounding of
contaminated water reuse is also meant to provoke a new public perception of wastewater as
resource, not waste.
Transsolar Klima Engineering is currently developing a vapor condensation façade called the
Water out of Air Device (WOA). The façade is part of the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi,
designed by Foster + Partners, and demonstrates a collaboration between architecture and
engineering. The coastal location of Abu Dhabi presents viable opportunities to augment water
availability by drawing water from the air, which has high humidity levels (20–25g/kg).
At nighttime, a desiccant material (small silica gel pellets) absorbs humidity. The absorbent
material dries during the day using solar radiation, resulting in condensation of the absorbed
water on a cooler surface. The condensed water is then collected in a tank. The water is not
potable, but suitable for irrigating the site’s garden. With a total surface area of 16,000m², and
with a relative humidity above 80% (22g/kg absolute humidity at 30°C air temperature), the
façade is estimated to produce 32,000 liters per day. The water collected from the WOA device
is completely decoupled from the interior water system of the building, but fully integrated into
the façade’s design.
Like net zero energy for buildings or sites where the total amount of energy used is equal to
the amount of renewable energy created on site, net zero water is a standard intended to close
the loop of water consumption. Net zero water means that the water consumed by a building
or landscape does not exceed the water captured and produced on site. The above examples
offer a middle ground between large infrastructural projects (e.g., desalination plants, dual water
networks) and plug-in devices (e.g., low-flush toilets) that can allow designers expand their
participation in urban water management, thereby giving agency to building structures and site
design in the collection, treatment, and distribution of water.
44 45
2 Introduction: Water Equals Food
WATER Water equals food. Conversely, water scarcity equals famine, which is inextricably linked to
poverty and underdevelopment. Although agriculture accounts for 70% of all water withdrawn
FOR by the agricultural, municipal, and industrial (including energy) sectors worldwide (World Water
Assessment Programme, 2012), there are 842 million hungry people in the world and 98% of
AGRICULTURAL them are in developing countries (World Food Programme, 2014). Three-quarters of all hungry
people live in rural areas, mainly in the villages of Asia and Africa. Around half of the world’s
PRODUCTION hungry people are from smallholder farming communities, surviving off marginal lands prone to
natural disasters like drought or flood. Another 20% belong to landless families dependent on
farming and about 10% live in communities whose livelihoods depend on herding, fishing, or
forest resources. The remaining 20% live in shantytowns on the periphery of the biggest cities in
developing countries. The numbers of poor and hungry city dwellers are rising rapidly along with
the world’s total urban population (World Food Programme, 2014).
Food demand is predicted to increase 60% by 2050, and at the same time, economic growth
and individual wealth are shifting diets from predominantly starches to meat and dairy, which
require more water. Furthermore, the distance food travels from field to fork along an extensive
supply chain results in wasted food at each step along the way, which also equals wasted water
(World Food Programme, 2014).
Another aspect to the relation between water and food is that agricultural practices are often
associated with environmental degradation including, among many other negative impacts, the
rapid depletion of aquifers and the degradation of aquatic ecologies as a result of over-extraction,
damming, diversion, and contamination. Today, 250 million hectares of land are cultivated, which
amounts to about five times more area than at the beginning of the 20th century. This exponential
expansion is a key factor in the vast deforestation and decline of biodiversity worldwide, which
results in recurrent flooding, erosion, and loss of viable agricultural land, not to mention loss of
human communities.
Globally, we are not “out of water.” In fact, there is enough water for present and future
needs for food cultivation. Clearly, water availability and high agricultural productivity is not only
a question of geographical distribution and climate patterns, but also a question of management
and technology. The Sudano Sahel region, for instance, has ample surface and underground
water resources, yet 80% of the population derives its income from rain-fed agriculture. A
combination of drought, poor soils, and inappropriate crop selection results in low agriculture
productivity and endemic poverty. As authors Dov Pasterank and Lennart Woltering demonstrate,
a transition to irrigated agricultural practices, which utilize the existing water resources, is the
necessary solution to alleviate famine and poverty. In contrast, irrigated arid and non-arid regions
alike still depend on non-renewable fresh water resources as the primary water source. Here,
a technological shift to desalinated water and/or treated wastewater would ensure a consistent
water supply.
The Design Perspective
Given the recent interest in urban agriculture among the architectural design fields, the
questions we wish to raise here pertain to how design can contribute to rethinking food
production in relation to land use and water management, particularly in context of the above-
mentioned issues, such as the redevelopment of rural areas and shantytowns, the environmental
mitigation of aquatic ecosystems, and the integration of urban food production as a means to
increase urban food security and water conservation.
This chapter invites a diversity of perspectives from the fields of agronomy, hydrology, and
water engineering, as well as architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design, to open up
a discourse around the following questions:
• How is water configured in urban agriculture today?
• What are some of the most progressive water management strategies
for agriculture in arid regions?
• How can these approaches serve as design principles for urban design?
• Finally, what are the potentials for arriving at a unified water management strategy that would
synergistically serve agriculture, urban design, and aquatic ecosystems?
90 91
Urban Agriculture 1. Design publications: On Farming A few nations have systematically replaced potable water with alternative water sources,
(2010), Carrot City: Creating Places including treated wastewater and desalinated water. Water conservation is further optimized
The topic of urban food production is at the forefront of contemporary architectural discourse. for Urban Agriculture (2011), Urban
Several publications and conferences (Side Note 1) that investigate the relationship between Agriculture: Growing Healthy,
through an industrial ecology approach, whereby water cascades through a network of end users
food and cities have surfaced in recent years partly as a response to sustainability, namely Sustainable Places (2011), Designing to produce a closed loop system in which waste becomes input for new processes (by-product
issues of environmental mitigation and adaptation, human health, and social equity. Although Urban Agriculture: A Complete Guide synergy, “waste-to-feed” exchanges), as well as smart irrigation techniques and appropriate crop
to the Planning, Design, Construction, selection.
urban agriculture is not a new concept or practice, the subject has evolved as an extension of Maintenance and Management of
design objectives such as smart growth that supports mixed land use developments as a means Edible Landscapes (2013). Effluent reclamation and reuse on a national scale in Israel, for example, is highly effective
to achieve livable cities, the repurposing of urban dross and vacant lots, and the design of in bridging the gap between demand and availability. Moreover, it is infinitely more reliable than
productive and performative landscapes such as constructed ecologies and green infrastructure. Design conferences: 6th International annual rainfall thanks to the year-round supply of municipal sewage. The extensive treatment
AESOP Sustainable Food Planning
Urban food production ultimately addresses a life style question concerning the individual’s stake method, which includes stabilization reservoirs or constructed wetlands, is massive in size at the
Conference, Leeuwarden, The
in making decisions about where food comes from and how it affects one’s health. Netherlands, 2014; Global Urban city-region scale but offers seasonal and multi-year storage which bridges seasonal and annual
The subject of food production in urban contexts touches upon a vast array of technical Agriculture Summit, Bonn, Germany, gaps of drought with the potential for constant irrigation and peak irrigation in the summer.
2014; Urban Agriculture Summit,
and logistical details ranging from horticulture and greenhouses, to policy and business At a business-to-business scale, networks of end users synergistically exchange surplus
Toronto, Canada, 2012; Food and
strategies, to community engagement. Within the discipline of urban design, the subject links the City, Dumbarton Oaks Research low-quality water and residue. In effect, multiple end users utilize the same unit of water for
to a lineage of 20th century Modernist visions for urban planning and ambitions for social Library and Collection, Washington, their crops and operations. For instance, surplus water collected from peppers and tomatoes
engineering (Waldheim, 2010), as well as more contemporary Everyday Urbanism (Chase, DC, 2012. is redirected to a grape variety that can tolerate a higher level of salinity and benefit from the
Crawford, and Kaliski, 2008) which includes backyard kitchen gardens, community gardens, residual fertilizers. Brackish water is used in aquaculture and then reused for irrigation of a salt-
and farmer’s markets. The focus is primarily on the transformation of built form and program. tolerant olive tree. Surplus nitrate from ornamental fish cultivation is used for aquatic flowers,
The efforts, thus far, have been in generating visions for a new life style and getting various while the effluent from fish farms is used in date palm plantations. The final residue, sludge, is
stakeholders to buy into the general idea. Few publications have focused on analyzing the pro digested into methane and redistributed to the fish farms. In addition to achieving zero waste,
forma of urban agriculture and associated implications on infrastructure (e.g., increased water each end user has the ability to custom-formulate the appropriate water quality flowing through
demand, potential for a dual water system), environmental impact (e.g., effect of fertilizer runoff their operation.
on water bodies), and economic feasibility (e.g., labor, distribution) (see, for example, Viljoen,
Bohn, and Howe, 2005).
Technological Adaptation
Fadi Masoud critiques the superficial imagery that the New Urbanist model paints of “(an)
According to Dov Pasternak and Lennart Woltering, the Sudano Sahelian region is not “out of
agrarian landscape as a backdrop to settlement” for neglecting to consider and reconfigure
water” but lacking in the appropriate irrigation technology. The region has significant quantity
water infrastructure. Masoud calls for an integrated water cycle management where water
of underground and surface water, but less than 1% of its cultivated land is irrigated even
supply, stormwater, wastewater, and aquatic ecosystems are managed as interconnected
though 80% of the population is dependent on subsistence agriculture. The International Crops
systems that span multiple organizational, neighborhood, and regional boundaries, and where the
Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) specifically targets millions of smallholder
flows and cycles of resources are embedded in architectural and urban code. Such a charge is
producers who currently use labor-intensive and wasteful manual irrigation methods that result
important insofar as it shifts the focus from haphazard urban agriculture as it primarily manifests
in low agricultural productivity. Its African Market Garden (AMG) system is a kit comprised of a
in the form of community-run gardens, and opens up a bigger question to decision makers about
low-pressure drip irrigation that is complemented with suitable varieties of high-value vegetable
transitioning to closed loop urban water-sanitation systems and systemizing a new productive
and fruit crops. It allows small producers to have access to drip irrigation, usually limited to large
landscape typology within the built environment.
commercial farms, thereby improving their productivity. This case demonstrates that the informal
That said, the essays by Masoud and Chaouni highlight the important role that an integrated (private) small-scale irrigation sector, which operates in a more market-driven fashion, is more
approach to landscape, urban, and architectural design can play in hydrologic analysis and profitable than more expensive formal sector irrigation initiatives.
projective modeling of water management in relation to food production. Designers have the
According to the World Food Programme, women are the world’s primary food producers,
capacity to envision new and unconventional scenarios and produce multi-functional solutions by
yet cultural traditions and social structures often mean women are much more affected by
synthesizing and materializing diverse sets of scientific data. The authors, however, encourage
hunger and poverty than men (World Food Programme, 2014). The AMG provides a return on
designers to collaborate with the natural and social science disciplines in order to quantify the
labor that is 3 to 3.5 times greater than that of a traditional system, and 15 to 18 times greater
performance metrics of their proposals. They also highlight the relevance of often forgotten, or
than the average daily income in Niger. Aside from numerous benefits such as increased
abandoned vernacular building practices that not only have high performance attributes, but also
production, yield, and income, the kit reduces water chores usually assigned to women. It also
have an ongoing cultural significance.
reduces the labor required for irrigation by about 80%; this reduces the operation cost to the
producer by about 40%, and allows women to fully participate in irrigated horticulture. AMG can
Closed Loop Systems triple yields in long-duration vegetable crops. Women could cultivate 10 times more land while
As Eilon Adar describes, a major shift in approaching water in context of agricultural production spending half as much time in the garden as they had spent with the traditional system. As a
is to consider water a commodity, not a resource. Although contradictory to the notion that result of this extra time, they had almost four times the earnings from non-agricultural activities
water is a human right with regards to drinking water supply, in context of the economics of food as before. Water technologies often have impacts on the socio-economic structure of societies
production, water as commodity means that its utilization is extremely efficient. Since every drop where they are used.
counts, farmers use a range of water qualities including brackish water and treated municipal
or agricultural effluent, as well as efficient and smart (e.g. sensor activated) irrigation control
methods. In effect, water’s monetary value incentivizes invention and inventiveness, and a zero-
waste policy.
92 93
Tool Kit: Food Production Issues for Project Design Briefs Spatial Organization
In order to achieve the ambition to synergistically integrate food production with cities and • The spatial extent of wastewater reclamation can be local, regional, or inter-regional.
aquatic ecosystems, designers must be provided with a tool kit, a set of criteria that can figure in • Consider the potential overlap and synergy between hydrological structures and water-
design briefs. Some of these criteria are outlined below: sanitation infrastructure (e.g., hydrological corridors can integrate wastewater treatment via
bioremediation and public recreation space, while providing ecological habitat).
Conceptual Framework • Topography, geology, and microclimate variation form the basis for the organization of cities
• Water is a commodity and has a market value; water utilization is therefore highly efficient. and land uses.
• There is no water shortage but a shortage of water quality and/or technology to efficiently • Housing and streetscape design play a role in on site water recycling.
collect and distribute water. • Cluster and communal systems allow producers to benefit from the collective use of water,
• Innovative technology and cycling of water can bridge the gap between availability and energy resources, land, purchasing, and marketing.
demand.
• Water cascades through a chain or network of end users to produce a closed loop system;
the same unit of water is used multiple times. References
• Automating operations (e.g., water collection, irrigation) can create significant savings in Chase, J., Crawford, C., and Kaliski, J., eds. (2008). Everyday Urbanism. New York: Monacelli Press.
labor and increase overall earnings from non-agricultural activities for smallholder producers.
Gorgolewski, M., Komisar, J., and Nasr, J. (2011). Carrot City: Creating Places for Urban Agriculture.
• Vernacular water budgeting and crop cultivation (e.g., quanats, seguias) can offer both New York: Monacelli Press.
technical and spatial models for contemporary design schemes.
Hodgson, K., Campbell, M.C., Bailkey, M. (2011). Urban Agriculture: Growing Healthy, Sustainable
• Analytical and projective modeling of water availability for both ecological systems and Places. Chicago: American Planning Association.
agricultural production could benefit from investigating the existing and potential implications
Philips, A. (2013). Designing Urban Agriculture: A Complete Guide to the Planning, Design,
of urban, landscape, and architectural form, technology, materiality, and environmental
Construction, Maintenance and Management of Edible Landscapes. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
performance on water (e.g., water harvesting and reuse, pervious vs. impervious surfaces,
preservation of canopy, urban density). Viljoen, A., Bohn, K., and Howe, J., eds. (2005). Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes: Designing
Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Cities. Oxford: Elsevier Architectural Press.
• Diversify the scale, type, and distribution of water solutions. Develop multi-functional
solutions. Waldheim, C. (2010). “Notes towards a history of agrarian urbanism,” in M. White and M. Przybylski
(eds.), On Farming. Barcelona: Actar.
White, M., Przybylski, M., eds. (2010). On Farming. Barcelona: Actar.
Water Collection, Treatment, and Delivery
World Food Programme. (2014). “Who are the hungry?” World Food Programme. http://www.wfp.org/
• Distribute a variety of water qualities (potable, effluent, treated effluent, brackish) via
hunger/who-are
different colored pipe networks.
World Water Assessment Programme. (2012). UN World Water Development Report: Managing Water
• Each end user customizes water quality according to crop requirements.
under Uncertainty and Risk. UNESCO. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002156/215644e.pdf
• Conserve water, fertilizer, and soil through drip irrigation to deliver both water and fertilizer,
confine root zone and reduction of percolation, and implement smart irrigation control (e.g.,
calculation of transpiration rates through the use of sensors).
• Adapt technology through testing from large-scale to small-scale operations (e.g., low-
pressure drip irrigation is suitable for small plots).
• Use of alternative energy sources like solar radiation, gravitation, or artesian pressure to
further cut down the costs of water supply.
• Construct attenuation reservoirs to collect runoff water, settle sediment, recharge aquifer,
and store for irrigation during peak demand.
• Construct stabilization ponds and reservoirs for extensive treatment and storage of municipal
effluent to provide constant supply and bridge seasonal and annual gaps in precipitation.
Planting and other agricultural activities
• Match crops with irrigation method.
• Select water-thrifty crops and crops that can tolerate low-quality water.
• Graft commercial crop species with salt-tolerant plant shoots.
• Identify unconventional agricultural activities (e.g., algae production) and potential use of by-
products (e.g., sludge converted into methane for energy).
• Refer to traditional oasian agriculture for planting schemes whereby a tall canopy provides
shade and evapotranspiration; mid-height fruit trees are planted below; and the groundcover
consists of legumes, grains, and a range of vegetables.
94 95
3 Introduction: Urban Aquatic Ecosystems
WATER The term “ecosystem services” refers to the benefits that humans gain from the functions of
ecosystems, which are often assigned economic values. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
FOR has designated several categories of ecosystem services, which include provisioning (e.g., food,
water), regulation (e.g., climate and water flow), support (e.g., nutrient cycling, pollination),
ECOSYSTEM and culture (e.g., aesthetic value, recreation, sense of place). With respect to water and cities,
ecosystem services such as flood mitigation, erosion control, and the protection of property and
SERVICES human life, as well as water quality improvement and conservation, wastewater treatment, the
creation of habitat, and provision of education, recreation, and aesthetic value, can all be derived
from urban aquatic ecosystems.
At the same time, the extreme manipulation of urban aquatic ecosystems (e.g., damming,
discharge of contaminated water to waterways), coupled with the increase of impervious
surfaces and aging or inadequate water-sanitation infrastructure, results in degraded ecological
functioning of waterways and increased risk to human life through flooding, water contamination,
and so on (Larson, et al., 2013). Aridland aquatic ecosystems are all the more vulnerable to both
natural and anthropogenic disturbances due to their limited and unpredictable water availability.
The following three sections provide a framework for understanding the temporal and spatial
scales of water availability in relation to existing and possible aridland habitation.
Hydrological Flux
One of the key attributes of desert streams and rivers is the high inter-annual variability in water
flow availability (Larson, et al., 2013). Aridland aquatic systems are largely characterized by
intermittent ephemeral water systems due to low precipitation and long periods of drought, as
well as elevated temperatures and high evaporation rates. Equally severe is the infrequent yet
voracious flooding that rapidly transforms the landscape from a dune scape or barren land to a
surging river or a waterhole as large as a lake. Such conditions may also be further intensified
with urban and regional development and infrastructure, as well as with changes to climate
patterns.
The extreme hydrological flux between desiccation and flood, and consequent unpredictability
in water availability, have influenced the way water in drylands is perceived. For example, Gini
Lee’s essay in this part recounts the long-standing view of Central Australia’s arid landscape
as a “hideous blank—a barren, alien, and useless place,” which “comes alive” once record-
breaking rains fill inland waters and lakes with more water than has been seen for years. The
primary theme that emerges here is the recurring loss of cultural and institutional memory of
such profound hydrological transformation. This loss often results in the gradual encroachment
of habitation into waterways during prolonged periods of drought. The Wadi Hanifah case
study illustrates this phenomenon. With an unprecedented growth and rapid urbanization of
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, parts of the ephemeral waterways (wadis) were quarried and mined for
construction materials, while other parts have been filled in to accommodate new subdivisions,
roads, and infrastructure. Many areas had become dumping grounds for as much as
1,000,000m3 of solid waste.
The southern reaches of the Drâa River (described in Chapter 2) convey a similar lapse
of memory. The river had been significantly desiccated over the last 40 years due to both
anthropogenic factors, such as construction of a dam upstream, increase of population and
water demand, and rise in tourism, as well as natural factors, such as climate change. During the
rain event in 2009, which was of a magnitude that had not been seen in more than 15 years, the
tourist lodges built within the flood plain during this prolonged period of drought were washed
away, and one fatality was reported. Children under the age of 15 had never seen a full river
flowing through their town. Old men strolled along the river hand in hand, reminiscing of the last
time the river was full.
Lee argues that in order to fully comprehend aridland habitation and associated technical
or technological approaches to hydrology, we must first examine the etymological origins of
technology as a synthesis of techne (skill, craft) and logia (knowledge). In other words, local
146 147
knowledge of natural and constructed systems, both past and present, must be viewed as a 1. Land degradation points to the 2. Online tools, such as the as well as the spatial scale and physical attributes of a site, and volume of water relative to
crucial part of technology. In her work, Lee traces the character and coexistence of human and interdependent relations between California Irrigation Management topography, surface porosity, vegetation, and built structures. The basic idea of water budget
water, soil, and vegetation. For Information System (CIMIS),
hydrological systems and the remnant structures that frame the landscape—bridges, overpasses, example, hydrological changes provide hourly, daily, monthly, and
analysis, as Wescoat describes, is comprised of simple mass balance analysis of inputs
dams, towns, and cultivated gardens. She argues that in order to understand the arid terrain, affect plant and soil ecology; the annual water budgets for user- (precipitation in various forms) minus outputs (evapotranspiration and runoff) plus change in
one must look for these cues to fully comprehend and anticipate the location, quantity, and quality loss of vegetation leads to topsoil specified time periods, weather storage (soil moisture recharge and discharge). This idea becomes more complex when applied
of water. Whether they are ancient or modern, man-made or geomorphological structures, the erosion and decrease in soil stations, and regions. An online over different time steps (e.g., daily, monthly, and decadal scales) and spatial scales (e.g.,
infiltration capacity; over-pumping tool called WebWIMP (Web-
observation of landscape cues, Lee argues, has been an integral part of indigenous knowledge from weather station data at a point in space, to sites, regions, and global assessments). In
of groundwater increases salinity Based Water-Budget Interactive
as a way of reading, inhabiting, and working with the landscape. It is a cultural knowledge and in the soil, impacting the viability of Modeling Program) calculates that respect, water budget analysis today involves real-time monitoring of evapotranspiration
set of skills embedded within a community that should inform land use and spatial planning. plant growth, and so on. water budgets globally at a and dynamic weather data via sensor instrumentation and online tools (Side Note 2), as well
Another key attribute of arid landscapes is their fragility, both ecological and cultural. As Lee half-degree grid cell resolution, as irrigation design and scheduling that incorporates weather data and soil moisture irrigation
and can incorporate variations in control technologies. Approaching water budget analysis in this manner, Wescoat argues,
points out, the limited presence of critical refugia waterholes in the Central Australian landscape soil depth, infiltration rates, and
jeopardizes the existence of relict species that depend on the ecological habitats the waterholes climate change scenarios. The
defines it as a technology for water conserving design that links measurement, computation, and
provide. And while the rise in tourism has shifted government attention and funding to better U.S. Environmental Protection integrative analysis.
protect these barren lands, the accompanying increase in water demand in turn puts additional Agency has recently created a Yet, water budget analysis and water conserving design are also defined by age old practices
“Water Budget Tool,” including
pressure on their fragile ecologies. Aziza Chaouni’s account of the Drâa Valley (see Part 2) a spreadsheet and associated
that have been recently revived, ranging from rainwater and surface runoff capture in small to
describes the gradual decline of the oasian ecology, which has a direct and significant impact on analytic methods, to bring this large reservoirs, the reuse of treated wastewater (often through bioremediation, for example
human habitation, economy, and culture. Chaouni’s essay and the Taragalte Ecolodge case study analysis in landscape design into using constructed wetlands), and the planting of native and drought-adapted species, also
describe a process of desertification, or land degradation (Side Note 1). the mainstream. known as “xeriscaping” or “waterwise” planting.
Most importantly, the loss of ecological quality contributes to the loss of an integrated cultural This part’s contributions provide examples for bridging the seasonal and annual gaps in water
knowledge; conversely, the ongoing cultural transformation furthers the ecological degradation. availability over a range of spatial and time scales. In the Wadi Hanifah case, hundreds of micro-
As a result, the ministerial solutions to the ecological problems are divorced from the ways in catchment structures and planting swales were constructed throughout the floodplain to capture
which people now inhabit and engage with the landscape. They are merely technical and isolated the scarce annual rainfall and enhance soil moisture, and thus increase the survival rates of
solutions to ecological problems (e.g., dune stabilization) but lack a comprehensive approach plantings. In conjunction, check dams were constructed to attenuate flow, reduce erosion, retain
to aridland habitation, both past and present, and vernacular practices to manage flooding. It sediment, and increase water infiltration to help establish vegetation. The Taragalte Ecolodge
is no surprise then to identify the didactic aspiration of the Taragalte Ecolodge, Hiriya Landfill operates in a similar fashion on a much smaller scale; a series of cut-and-fill operations enable
Recycling Park, and Wadi Hanifah projects. The aim to restore the ecological health of these water capture for irrigation purposes during drought periods. Other examples for water collection
landscapes is embedded in their commercial and civic redefinition. methods are found in Part 1, while Part 2 provides examples for wastewater reuse, smart
In the same capacity that urbanization can alter natural hydrology and exacerbate water irrigation techniques, and appropriate plant selection.
scarcity, urban effluent maintains a constant flow into otherwise dry natural water systems. In Three themes emerge from this chapter’s contributions in the context of water budget
other words, urban water systems greatly alter the natural hydrological flux, and herein lies analysis and water conserving design.
the potential to hybridize and integrate urban water management and natural hydrology as a The first concerns the adaptation of reference materials with input from local expertise and
synergistic system. site-specific data. For instance, for the Mahtab Bagh conservation project, the California-based
The case of Wadi Hanifah provides a good example. Despite the increase in water supply, guidebook (known as Water Use Classifications of Landscape Species, WUCOLS) was used
due to stormwater runoff and sewage dumping from the city of Riyadh, until very recently with input from Rajasthani horticulturalists for plant selection. The guidebook classifies plants as
the quality of the water was so poor that it was considered an open-air sewer. The massive having high, medium, or low water requirements in different climatic regions of California, and
restoration project, led by Moriyama and Teshima and Buro Happold, radically recovered this it adjusts reference evapotranspiration by microclimate and planting density as well as species
condition as both runoff and sewage are treated via a variety of bioremediation techniques. coefficients.
Fadi Masoud’s essay on the Jordan River (see Chapter 2) describes a similar condition where The second theme concerns the adaptation of historical concepts to modern water supply
decades of water diversion, low precipitation, and urban effluent have left the river a polluted systems and the extension of water budget methods beyond the garden or site scale and into
trickle, although the 2013 restoration project has begun to remediate and replenish the river the city and surrounding region. For example, the proposed Residential Development at Al Ain
with desalinated and treated wastewater (Abdelrahman and Jägerskog, 2013). In the same vein, in Abu Dhabi links traditional and modern water systems: aflaj irrigation systems tap hillslope
the River Restoration Project, described in the Wastewater Treatment and Reclamation in Israel aquifers and convey water by tunnels to the surface water distribution canals of an oasis and are
case study (see Part 2), greatly depends on reclaimed wastewater supply to maintain surface linked to desalination and wastewater collection and reuse systems, as a joint strategy for a new
flows in streams and, conversely, it diverts wastewater away from surface and subsurface water urban development. The Taragalte Ecolodge was developed as a prototype for ecotourism that
resources. could be replicated in other locations as a broad anti-desertification strategy. In the Wadi Hanifah
case study, the serial aggregation of micro-catchments and planting cells acts as a significant
Tools for Water Conserving Design infrastructural component of the watershed management plan, specifically through mitigating the
erosive forces of flash floods and conserving water used in irrigation.
The design of aridland habitation has been traditionally structured around the variability between
scarcity and surplus. The legacy of this design approach, as Wescoat tells us in his essay, is Lastly, the third theme concerns the spatial implications and aesthetic potentials of water
rooted in water budget analysis and water conserving design, and in methods of regulating the regulation. For example, site grading and a network of sunken courtyards or constructed open
presence of water. The idea is that while having no water or too much water is often seen as and covered reservoirs, in combination with planting geometries and materials selection, can
a vulnerability, it can also be thought of as an opportunity to develop joint strategies for water reveal the fluctuating levels of water, whereby the seasonal transformation of space becomes its
management that mediate the two ends of the spectrum. aesthetic expression. The Nagaur Mughal-Rajput Palace-Garden Project in Rajasthan, India, is a
good example.
Water budget analysis is the evaluation of water demand for natural and constructed
landscapes with respect to temporality—frequency, intensity, and duration of weather events—
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Mutually Supportive Systems 3. See the Rio Besos project
featured in Margolis and Robinson
Modifying the presence of water offers vast possibilities for design and for shaping both social (2007).
and ecological systems. Water can be detained on site or within a riverbed via reservoirs, check
dams, micro-catchments, and inflatable dams (Side Note 3). Mechanical distribution via pumps
and channels can be utilized to dissipate or attenuate water, and conversely, to intensify or
concentrate water in specific areas.
What is most evident in this collection of essays and case studies is the aspiration to
surpass the typical urban grid layout and planometric design approach, which often overlooks
hydrological dynamics. In all of these projects, water systems serve as the framework around
which urban development, public space, water-sanitation infrastructure, ecological systems,
and agriculture are organized. With this approach, natural, social, and technological systems
converge as multi-use spaces that operate in a mutually beneficial manner.
The proposed residential development in Al Ain, the Wadi Hanifah Restoration project,
and the Jordan River Valley masterplan by Masoud (Chapter 2) provide excellent models for a
closed-loop water management system, integrating hydrology and hydraulics as a means to
rethink urban form and public landscape. The Wadi Hanifah bioremediation facility, which is in
itself a hybrid of mechanical and biological processes, is nestled within a bioengineered riverbed
and located in proximity of a massive highway interchange; it acts as an extension of the city in
terms of wastewater management and public space. Masoud envisions the wadi as the spine for
each neighborhood, where water collection, sanitation infrastructure, and public space converge;
the relation between individual lots, street right-of-ways and open space are organized around
surface water collection and effluent reuse. The Hiriya Landfill Park and Taragalte Ecolodge
exemplify the same principle at a smaller scale and as strategies to unify architecture
and landscape.
Bioremediation and bioengineering are key approaches to achieve multi-use and mutually
supportive water-human systems. In some of the case studies in this chapter, such interventions
are conceived as modern-day icons of progressive water management and open space design.
Constructed wetlands, for example, are often designed as a food chain which supports habitat
ranging from small organisms to fish to fowl, and as an interface between the terrestrial system
(birds) and the aquatic system (fish, plants, invertebrates). Terrestrial and aquatic species
not only provide nutrient removal function but also add value for public interest. Undoubtedly,
bioremediation projects are successful in radically changing public perception of wastewater
reuse and inhabiting water infrastructure.
References
Abdelrahman, R. and Jägerskog, A. (2013) “A Last Ditch Effort to Save the Jordan River.” Waterfront 1: 6–8.
www.siwi.org/Resources/Water_Front_Articles/WF-1-2013_Cover%20_story_Jordan.pdf
Larson, E. K., Earl, S., Hagen, E. M., Hale, R., Hartnett, H., McCrackin, M., McHale, M., and Grimm, N. B.
(2013). “Beyond Restoration and into Design: Hydrologic Alterations in Aridland Cities.” in S.T.A. Pickett et al.
(eds.), Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design: Linking Theory and Practice for Sustainable Cities, Future City
3. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. 183–210.
Margolis, L. and Robinson, A. (2007) Living Systems: Innovative Materials and Technologies for Landscape
Architecture. Birkhäuser.
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