The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, coupled with rapid urbanization, are placing unprecedented pressure on urban environments. The Three-Point Sponge Policy Approach (3PSPa) integrates the Three-Point Approach (3PA) with Sponge City principles to enhance urban flood resilience through design-driven, adaptive, and multifunctional solutions. This paper applies the 3PSPa framework to Zhengzhou, China, which experienced devastating flooding in 2021, to assess its current flood resilience measures and explore pathways for improvement. Two contrasting urban districts in Zhengzhou were analysed: B1, a newly developed, low-density district offering high potential for implementing large-scale blue-green-grey infrastructure (BGGI); and B2, a dense, older district where interventions are limited, typically emerging incrementally through targeted retrofitting associated with urban renewal activities. By applying the 3PSPa’s five-step design process, this study identifies resilience gaps and proposes tailored interventions, balancing short-term, localized strategies with long-term, catchment-wide transformations. It emphasizes the importance of shifting from a conveyance-based water management approach to a diversified strategy that integrates infrastructure with natural hydrological processes. ... Read more

Small and regional ports are often understood in relation to scale, defined by what they lack compared to large, globally connected hubs in terms of volume, capacity, or visibility. This way of thinking, however, tends to overlook how these ports actually function on the ground. Rather than operating primarily as nodes in global logistics chains, small ports are usually deeply entangled with urban form, local economies, ecological systems, and municipal governance. They bring together flows of goods, labour, sediments, and environmental impacts, while at the same time anchoring everyday practices, cultural identities, and place-based economic activities.

To ground these reflections, the blog draws on discussions from a public event organized by PortCityFutures under its Small Ports, Big Challenges thematic track, held on 17 October 2025. The meeting brought together researchers and practitioners to explore how small and regional ports operate within deltas, river basins, and port clusters—not as secondary infrastructures, but as places where questions of sustainability, governance, spatial transformation, and regional connectivity become especially tangible. ... Read more

How do we protect our cities from rising sea levels? This question is no longer hypothetical for coastal cities like The Hague, the political capital of the Netherlands. Set to celebrate its 800th anniversary in 2042, The Hague faces significant risks from climate change, particularly from the rising North Sea. With the city’s rich history and cultural heritage connected to the maritime dynamics at stake, innovative strategies for climate adaptation are urgently needed. This was the central challenge tackled during the recent International Workshop Netherlands eXchanges Recife (NXR-2024), where experts, students, and professionals from across the globe collaborated to co-create solutions for sea level rise adaptation. [...] ... Read more

Urban water management is confronted with more frequent, more extreme weather events. This paper introduces the Three-Points Approach (3PA) into Sponge City concept, to create a novel framework aimed at guiding water management interventions across local, urban, regional, and river basin scales. The 3PA integrates three domains—Day-to-day, Design, and Extreme —offering a nuanced strategy for flood and drought risk mitigation, also for extreme events. Notably, the 3PA emphasizes the fusion of blue-green infrastructure (BGI) with conventional gray approaches to enhance both multifunctionality and resilience in extreme weather conditions. The study identifies critical issues of implementing this Three-Points Sponge Policy (3PSP) approach, including spatial and temporal scales, transitioning from gray to blue-green infrastructure, asset management, data handling, and effective communication. Interventions spanning various spatial scales and addressing flood protection, drought resilience, and water quality are explored in a first and indicative application in Zhengzhou. The case study distills key design principles, highlighting the imperative of never shifting problems, embracing ecosystem-based adaptation, seeking synergy between interventions, and incorporating adaptability into designs. The 3PSP approach emerges as a holistic framework that considers both risks and benefits, contributing valuable insights to the discourse on integrating urban and river basin water management, improving our ways of dealing with extreme weather events while maximizing the day-to-day benefits of our interventions. ... Read more

Large ports such as Rotterdam, Shanghai, or Los Angeles are always in the foreground; they are in the press, the subject of many academic studies, and key players in political decision-making, but what about all small and medium-sized ports in the same territory? If we look at the map of the port city territory of Rotterdam (Hein et al., 2023), we see several red spots indicating the ports of Scheveningen, Schiedam, Dordrecht, and Moerdijk, among others. These ports facilitate access to water and land, effectively support local industries, connect communities, and cooperate with larger maritime hubs (Figure 1). Together, these small ports form an important spatial, social, and economic grouping that is under-researched (Carella et al., 2024) and in need of comprehensive planning and policy advice. This blog presents different perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of small ports by presenting five ongoing projects by PortCityFutures members that address key issues in small ports. These projects were presented during the poster presentation at the symposium (RE-) CONNECTING MARITIME-URBAN ECOSYSTEMS on 16-17 September, 2024. [...] ... Read more