Urban Water Infrastructure

This book investigates the implications of different developments in water technology and infrastructure for urban sustainability and the relationship between cities and nature.

This book features expert contributions on key sustainability aspects of urban water management in Chinese agglomerations. Both technical and institutional pathways to sustainable urban water management are developed on the basis of a broad, interdisciplinary problem analysis.

URBAN WATER INFRASTRUCTURE NATO ADVANCED RESEARCH WORKSHOP SUMMARY 22-27 JUNE 1989 KYLE E SCHILLING P E Workshop Director The Workshop was based on the recognition that all NATO countries are concerned with similar water infrastructure issues. Present problems are aggravated by aging and neglected facilities, by inadequate financing and by water management institutions reflecting the needs of an earlier era. Service needs to be provided for expanding populations, at the same time that corrective measures must be taken for decaying older urban centers, resulting both from neglect and expiring service life. These needs exist within the framewode of other competing and conflicting uses for existing and yet to be developed water sources. The problems have generated some highly visible national debates over financing due to the large sums involved. Despite differences in the age of the North American, European and other societies, the technological ages of water supply and storm water systems are much the same and provide a common denominator in the worldwide trend to urbanization. Examination of approaches to urban water management also indicates that they are generally based on past experience and institutions created in a non-urban era. The physical, financial and institutional alternatives are consequently often out-of-step with current urban environment. Historically, the supply of adequate water and efficient storm water management have also been top priority items with water quality and other aspects of environmental protection assuming a lower priority after basic supply needs have been met.

This book presents three distinct pillars for analysis, design, and planning: urban water cycle and variability as the state of water being; landscape architecture as the medium for built-by-design; and total systems as the planning approach. The increasing demand for water and urban and industrial expansions have caused myriad environmental, social, economic, and political predicaments. More frequent and severe floods and droughts have changed the resiliency and ability of water infrastructure systems to operate and provide services to the public. These concerns and issues have also changed the way we plan and manage our water resources. Focusing on urban challenges and contexts, the book provides foundational information regarding water science and engineering while also examining topics relating to urban stormwater, water supply, and wastewater infrastructures. It also addresses critical emerging issues such as simulation and economic modeling, flood resiliency, environmental visualization, satellite data applications, and digital data model (DEM) advancements. Features: Explores various theoretical, practical, and real-world applications of system analysis, design, and planning of urban water infrastructures Discusses hydrology, hydraulics, and basic laws of water flow movement through natural and constructed environments Describes a wide range of novel topics ranging from water assets, water economics, systems analysis, risk, reliability, and disaster management Examines the details of hydrologic and hydrodynamic modeling and simulation of conceptual and data-driven models Delineates flood resiliency, environmental visualization, pattern recognition, and machine learning attributes Explores a compilation of tools and emerging techniques that elevate the reader to a higher plateau in water and environmental systems management Water Systems Analysis, Design, and Planning: Urban Infrastructure serves as a useful resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in the areas of water resources and systems analysis, as well as practicing engineers and landscape professionals.

A city is more than a massing of citizens, a layout of buildings and streets, or an arrangement of political, economic, and social institutions. It is also an infrastructure of ideas that are a support for the beliefs, values, and aspirations of the people who created the city. In City Water, City Life, celebrated historian Carl Smith explores this concept through an insightful examination of the development of the first successful waterworks systems in Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago between the 1790s and the 1860s. By examining the place of water in the nineteenth-century consciousness, Smith illuminates how city dwellers perceived themselves during the great age of American urbanization. But City Water, City Life is more than a history of urbanization. It is also a refreshing meditation on water as a necessity, as a resource for commerce and industry, and as an essential—and central—part of how we define our civilization.

This book offers new research on urban policy innovations that promote the application of blue-green infrastructure in managing water resources sustainably. The author argues that urban water managers have traditionally relied on grey infrastructural solutions to mitigate risks with numerous economic and environmental consequences. Brears explores the role urban water managers have in implementing blue-green infrastructure to reduce ecological damage and mitigate risk. The case studies in this book illustrate how cities, of differing climates, lifestyles and income-levels, have implemented policy innovations that promote the application of blue-green infrastructure in managing water, wastewater and stormwater sustainably to reduce environmental degradation and enhance resilience to climate change. This new research on urban policy innovations that promote the application of blue-green infrastructure in managing water resources sustainably will be of interest to those working on water conservation and policy.

In past decades, urban water management practices focused on optimizing the design and operation of water distribution networks, wastewater collection systems, and water and wastewater treatment plants. However, municipalities are now faced with aging urban water infrastructures whose operation must be improved and expanded to maintain current high