A Landscape-Based Regional Design Approach for Sustainable Urban Development in the Pearl River Delta, China

Adaptive urban transformations employ landscape-based regional design as an integrative and multiscale design and planning approach for sustainable urban development. In this approach, natural and urban dynamics as derived from systems analysis set the pace and nature of adaptation. This chapter presents an initial strategy for adaptive urban...

Introduction: Adaptive Urban Transformation in the Pearl River Delta, China.

Deltaic areas are amidst the most favourable territories around the globe. Their strategic location and superior quality of their soils are core factors supporting both human development and the rise of these regions as global economic hubs. At the same time, deltas are extremely vulnerable to multiple threats from both climate change and the...

Landscape-Based Urbanism: Cultivating Urban Landscapes Through Design

Sustainable urbanisation requires planning and design strategies and principles that take the (natural) landscape as the basis for working with natural processes for the benefit of socially and ecologically inclusive and thriving urban landscapes. Such an approach takes the landscape first and considers the biosphere the context for social and...

Building with Nature as a cross-disciplinary approach: The role of hybrid contributions

The incentive for this publication was to expand the realm of enquiry around the topic of Building with Nature (BwN), for two main reasons. First to gain an interdisciplinary, and therefore deeper, understanding of BwN as an object of study. Secondly, but no less important, is an understanding of how different forms of knowledge contribute to...

Editorial: Building with Nature perspectives

This publication offers an overview of the latest cross-disciplinary developments in the field of Building with Nature (BwN) for the protection of coastal regions. The key philosophy of BwN is the employment of natural processes to serve societal goals, such as flood safety. The starting point is a systems-based approach, making interventions...

Towards a Landscape-based Regional Design Approach for Adaptive Transformation in Urbanizing Deltas

Deltaic areas are among the most promising regions in the world. Their<br/>strategic location and superior quality of their soils are core factors supporting both human development and the rise of these regions as global economic hubs. At the same time, however, deltas are extremely vulnerable to multiple threats from both climate change and the...

Introduction: Connecting Water and Heritage for the Future

Water has served and sustained societies throughout the history of humankind. People have actively shaped its course, form, and function for human settlement and the development of civilizations. Around water, they have created socioeconomic structures, policies, and cultures; a rich world of narratives, laws, and practices; and an extensive...

Learning from Agri-Aquaculture for Multiscale Water-Sensitive Design in the Pearl River Delta

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is a river dominated floodplain in southeast China. Decreasing space for water, through dike-ring construction, channelization, and urbanization, has led to increased flood risk from river, rain, and sea. To protect from flood risk, a more adaptive urbanization strategy is required; one takes into account a multiscale...

Towards a Landscape based Regional Design Approach for Adaptive Transformation

Deltaic areas are among the most promising regions in the world. Their strategic location, combined with the superior quality of their soils, constitute the main factors that have been supporting both human development and the rise of these regions as global economic hubs. At the same time, however, deltas face extreme vulnerability due to...

Spatial challenges in contemporary African New Towns and potentials for alternative planning strategies

New Towns in development across Africa are overwhelmingly designed according to twentieth-century planning models ranging from functionalist Chinese grids to American gated communities. Contemporary African New Towns based on these models are often unable to adapt to stimuli and, as a result, exacerbate both spatial and ecological challenges....