We live in a state of false abundance—a condition first articulated in the nineteenth century and later expanded through contemporary ecological critique—in which the apparent prosperity of modern consumption depends upon the systematic depletion of soils and territories that sustain human and more-than-human life. This depletion is structured by global markets demanding cheap food, labor, energy, and raw materials, and is enacted through extractive mining, industrial agriculture, infrastructural expansion, and large-scale construction. By abstracting material origins and obscuring ecological thresholds, extractive regimes normalize exhaustion while disproportionately burdening structurally marginalized communities.

Against this backdrop, cities and landscapes are not only shaped by depletion but actively reproduce it. Depletion forms the soils we become-with and co-produce, just as it conditions our design practices—whether acknowledged or not. It also shapes our collective future as climate change, climate-induced migration, and territorial instability demonstrate that environmental damage accumulates rather than resolves itself. Yet the study of soil—its cycles, dynamics, and transformations—has largely remained outside the core of design curricula and practice. Depletion therefore demands a reframing of disciplinary agency. As landscape architects, urban designers, artists, and thinkers increasingly turn their attention to soil and its exhaustion, this issue seeks to amplify emerging interdisciplinary thought and support the articulation of design’s agency under conditions of depletion.

This issue of the Journal of Delta Urbanism reframes (soil) depletion as a spatial, political, and material design inquiry. It calls for repositioning designers not as managers of decline, but as actors capable of tracing, engaging, and transforming depleted conditions. Drawing on contributions spanning research, practice, and dialogue—and grounded in a critical reading of present realities as a basis for imagining desired futures—the issue proposes three interrelated modes of engagement: designing with, within, and beyond depletion. Each mode repositions design differently: as a practice of tracing and critique (with), as a propositional engagement with existing constraints (within), and as a transformative imagination capable of challenging dominant paradigms (beyond). Together, they move from diagnosing the processes that produce depletion, to operating within its constraints, and ultimately to envisioning pathways capable of reshaping them. ... Read more

Highlighted by the recent 2021 flood events in Europe, this research takes the
momentum to underline the necessity for radical solutions that embrace uncertain and extreme discharges at the core of planning and design frameworks. Building upon existing Adaptive Management practices in the Netherlands, this research takes the experience of the Room for the River programme to discuss the challenges and opportunities arising from its (eventually inevitable) upscaling in the context of the Netherlands. It does so by means of two spatial and two managerial inquiries to draw conclusions on the complexities and entry points to shift towards large-scale change through small-scale interventions. ... Read more

To achieve inclusive and sustainable urban development, the introduction of water related Nature Based Solutions (NBS) have proven to be eff ective in specific urban contexts. Different sources point out their contribution to various SDG’s in Europe, Australia and the United States, all of which are regions with high GDP levels with strong institutional contexts. However, in regions that are underdeveloped, have weak institutional contexts, high social and economic inequality and are situated in more vulnerable or extreme landscapes, the so called ‘vulnerable geographies’, the experience with Nature Based Solutions is less extensive (PBL, 2018). This report presents the results of a literature review that aims at providing a first (broad) exploration of NBS in contexts outside the regions mentioned above. ... Read more

The present investigation portrays an experimental line of design and relational thinking aimed at establishing critical design premises in relation with the present state of change and crisis (Goddard et al., 2015 and Maxmen 2018). The description of abiotic and biotic shifts within the different realms -atmosphere, water and soil- inform the making of the urban / territorial project so it can contribute to the operationalization and management of the new conditions of life: Atmosphere talks about the importance of reading the new biophysical conditions of life through the establishment of a land use system of performances for carbon drawdown and new suitability analysis. Water casts light in the regeneration of ecosystems at watershed level through vegetation density strategies -such as aforestation- to reverse desertification and enhance the water cycle via the Biotic Pump (Makarieva & Gorshkov, 2007). Both Water and Atmosphere describe shifting conditions that land on the Soil, the interface allowing for the interaction of systems, where abiotic conditions are translated and de-codified into biotic conditions that the urban project can design with. Therefore, Soil identifies the ground as the element of design, the sustaining infrastructure of all living systems and proposes the transition from current mono-functional land use systems to regenerative systems through vegetation diversity strategies. The design of the territory of the new modernity, as an inter - multi - disciplinary process, must comprehend and project across the whole gradient of urbanization with the mission to regenerate urban landscapes, that is to say: to regulate atmospheric conditions, manage water patterns, sustain soil health and reconnect stronger culture and nature relations ... Read more