How Can the Rural-Urban Interface Contribute to Resilience in Developing Cities in Vietnam

How Can the Rural-Urban Interface Contribute to Resilience in Developing Cities in Vietnam?

Marcus Fisher

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This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the MA degree in Landscape Architecture of Manchester Metropolitan University Supervisor: Eddy Fox 30.08.2017

Word Count: 8,926

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Declaration ‘I declare that, except where explicitly stated, this work is entirely my own. I have not submitted it in substantially the same form towards the award of a degree or other qualification. It has not been written or composed by any other person and all sources have been appropriately referenced or acknowledged.’

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Abstract In 1950, 30% of the global population of 2.5 billion people lived in cities. Today that figure has increased to 7.5 billion, of which 50% now live in cities. This figure is predicted to increase to more than 65%, with the majority increase taking place in less economically developed countries (Data.worldbank.org 2017). Asia is predicted to be the fastest urbanizing region with the urban population projected to grow from 48%64% by 2050 (Trump et al. 2017) Vietnam is experiencing an unprecedented double transition, mirroring the global trend of urban migration as well as transitioning from a planned to a market economy under the economic philosophy of Đổi Mới (Translated as Reconstruction) adopted in 1986 (Ashui.com, 2017). Over the last 20 years the Đổi Mới policy has augmented economic growth and development by liberating fiscal regulation, decentralisation and creating a market economy. For example Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Haiphong are expected to triple in size by 2020. Hanoi now has an annual economic growth rate of approximately 10% and its GDP increased 11.2 times from 1985-2000.

(Viet-nam.wikispaces.com, 2017) A major consequence of this model of economic growth, based around a limited number of growth points (Hanoi, Ho Chi Min City, Da Nang and Haipong) is the rapid and unplanned expansion of the urban fabric, creating a mobile and often chaotic interface between rural and urban systems. This results in a multitude of negative environmental, physical, social, cultural and economic effects, whose influence permeates from these transitioning edges in to the established but often under resourced existing urban fabric (Anon, 2017).

The challenge of “the interface” is to utilise the positive dynamics that are evolving in the region with regards to the advantages of the Đổi Mới policy and to learn from regional and global models at multiple scales of tactical and operational implementation, creating systems that are proactive rather than crisis focused and have the ability to respond to change.

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A mix of flexible planning (glocal), local, self-help and spontaneous interventions, which recognise the unique cultural and economic Vietnamese profile of the interface, could produce responsive future programmes, which are both economically and environmentally sustainable.

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Table of Contents Chapter One Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..8

Chapter Two The Driving Forces of Urbanisation in Vietnam and the Evolution of the Interface…….9

Chapter Three Developing Countries - Emerging Issues of the rural/urban Interface………………….13

Chapter Four Emerging Issues of the Interface in Vietnam……………………………………………...15

Chapter Five Emerging Issues of the Interface in the Hanoi (North), Da Nang (Mid) and Ho Chi Min City (South)……………………………………………………………………………………22

Chapter Six The Link………………………………………………………………………………………..33

Chapter Seven Summary of key case studies and models for resilience…………………………………35

Chapter Eight How Can the Rural Urban Interface Contribute to Resilience in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City………………………………………………………………………………….39

Chapter Nine Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….58

Bibliography Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………...61 Bibliography of illustrations and Diagrams………………………………………………...65

Appendix One 1.1 The East Kolkatta Wetlands, Calcutta, India………………………………………….70 1.2 Urban Agriculture, Casablanca, Morocco……………………………………………..86 1.3 Yangtze River Delta Project, Shanghai, China……………………………………….90 1.4 Perimeter City 238, Lincoln, Nebraska……………………………………………….107 1.5 Aqueous Ecologies: Parametric Aquaculture and urbanism, New York, U.S……110 1.6 NHA Floating Village Project, Bangkok, Thailand…………………………………..112 1.7 Green Infrastructure, Stuttgart, Germany……………………………………………118 1.8 Freshkills Park, New York, U.S……………………………………………………….122

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List of Illustrations and Diagrams Figure 1. Urban Population % change: Vietnam 1959-2017 Figure 2. Vietnam Economy Since Doi Moi: Key Figures and Events Figure 3. The Desakota Zone Concept. Mapping the uneven boundary between urban and non-urban spaces in Asia Figure 4. Overlap of two distinct activities namely agriculture in urbanized setting Figure 5. Desakota region in northern Hanoi Figure 6. Urban Expansion of Hanoi 1992-2003 Figure 7. Surface water quality running into Vietnamese Rivers Figure 8. Wastewater in the peri-urban village of Nam Dihn, North Vietnam Figure 9. Salt water intrusion and drought at the Mekong River Delta Figure 10. Informal waste disposal in peri-urban Nha Trang Figure 11. Informal mining in Luc Yen, Vietnam Figure 12. Agricultural produce affected by intense floodwaters flowing over impermeable surfaces on the Red River Delta, Vietnam Figure 13. Air pollution from industrial sites in peri-urban Hanoi Figure 14. Deforestation for agriculture in Vietnam's Central peri-urban Highlands Figure 15. Extensive flooding hit the Da Nang interface in 2013 Figure 16. Land use change in Hanoi 1993-2007 Figure 17. Land cover area change Hanoi 1993-2007 Figure 18. New urban area of Linh Đàm in Hoàng Mai district vs. periurban village of Vạn Phúc, in Hà Đông district Figure 19. Soldiers collect dead fish floating in the polluted West Lake in Hanoi Figure 20. Soldiers collect dead fish floating in the polluted West Lake in Hanoi Figure 21. Distribution of low elevation regions in Vietnam vulnerable to flooding events Figure 22. Location of hydroelectric reservoirs upstream of Da Nang city Figure 23. Hydrological inundation in the Hoa Vang Province, Da Nang Figure 24. Extract from Vietnam News 6 April 2016.

Figure 25. Polluted watercourse in an informal settlement at the HCMC interface Figure 26. Transformation of cropland to built up land 1990-2012 Figure 27. The proportion of households owning motorcycles 1993-2008 Figure 28. Trend of MSW generation in Ho Chi Minh City from 1992-2010 Figure 29. Informal MSW dumping at the HCMC interface Figure 30. East Kolkatta Wetlands, closed loop system Figure 31. Distribution of Urban Agriculture solutions by the UAC project Figure 32. New landscape conditions of the YRDP Figure 33. Perimeter city 238 future condition Figure 34. Perimeter city 238, 11 new linear cities Figure 35. Wastewater production informing scales of urban development Figure 36. Exploded axon of the NHA Floating Village Project Bangkok Figure 37. Amphibious Container House by Richard Moreta Figure 38. Makako Floating School by Kunlé Adeyemi Figure 39. Stuttgart Green infrastructure Figure 40. Stuttgart Climate Atlas Figure 42. Connected green infrastructure in Stuttgart, Germany Figure 43. Iintegrated fishponds of the East Kolkatta Wetlands Figure 44. Transformed wasteland of Freshkills Park, New York Figure 45. Da Phuoc Landfill, Ho Chi Minh City

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Figure 46. Ariel Sharon Landfill Park, Tel Aviv, Israel Figure 47. Using excess waste for an art installation/tourist attraction at the Ariel Sharon Park

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Introduction The contemporary rural-urban interface is widely interpreted as the zone between city and surrounding hinterlands, though the boundaries of this transitional landscape fluctuate according to interpretation (Tacoli, 2003).

In terms of physicality the interface is a borderless juxtaposed topography, containing characteristics that are concurrently recognized in both rural and urban conditions. For example the interface may comprise areas of rich ecological services or outstanding natural beauty. In the same instance the interface could host material extraction sites; waste dumping grounds and areas of informal refuge (Douglas, 2006).

In rapidly developing countries where rates of urban expansion are exponentially increasing, a lack of firm regulatory planning provision has resulted in a somewhat spontaneous and reactive geographical and social zone of conflict for its anthropocentric and biocentric inhabitants (Douglas, 2006).

Although the interface can be seen as a volatile zone of conflicting rural and urban environments, the accelerated transitory nature of this landscape certainly offers opportunity and possibility to create contemporary rural urban linkages and systems as a sustainable and balanced response to the resilience of future urban fabrics (QvistrĂśm and Saltzman, 2007).

In 2007 global research indicated for the first time, that more people were living in cities than in the countryside. The process of urbanisation has continued exponentially with projections demonstrating that 60% of the world’s population will be considered urban by 2030 This rapid urbanization is primarily occurring in the developing countries of the global south. Although these developing countries are still considered predominantly rural and will continue to be in with relation to more developed countries, the rates of urbanisation are expected to be higher (UN, 2012).

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The Driving Forces of Urbanisation in Vietnam and the Evolution of the Interface The Indochina War led to Vietnamese independence under a communist government in 1954. At this time the country was divided. In the North, the Communist regime was unopposed, however the people of South Vietnam with the help of the United States of America fought against it during a civil war from 1955-1975. When Saigon eventually fell to the North, the country became unified under a Communist government for the first time (Britannica, 2017).

Figure 1. Urban Population % change: Vietnam 1959-2017 (WorldBank 2017)

The lack of agricultural production alongside economic stagnation led the government to institute a series of reforms in the 1980’s known as the Đổi Mới. Đổi Mới, roughly translated as ‘Reconstruction’ aimed to increase development and economic growth by transitioning from a centrally planned model of socialism to a market-oriented socialist economy. (Beresford, 2008).

By the early 1990s, the multi-scalar approach of Đổi Mới had a significant impact on Vietnam. Vietnam is now considered one of the economic powerhouses in developing Asia. (Beresford, 2008)

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Figure 2. Vietnam Economy Since Doi Moi: Key Figures and Events (TradingEconomics 2017)

In 1993 an informal land market emerged, leading to a densification of urban cores through an accelerated real estate market. However approximately 70-90% of the building was unauthorised by the government (Leaf, 2002).

Following the Land Law act of 1993, core urban areas became less concentrated due to government initiatives focussing on industrialisation and urbanisation of small cities causing rapid sprawl into pre-existing villages along the urban periphery. This rapid and unplanned sprawl effectively extended the urban border, bringing with it an assembly of urban activities and land uses at the expense of ecological services, rural livelihoods and settlements (Leaf, 2002).

Following Ä?áť•i Máť›i, city governments inherited more power and decision-making ability from the central government, generating tax incentives to appeal to corporate interests, resulting in the influx of foreign direct investment (FDI). This rapid economic growth contributed to increased rates of land use change, specifically for urbanisation and industrialisation. A product of this economic and urban expansion resulted in the formation of Desakota zones (DST, 2008)

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Figure 3. The Desakota Zone Concept. Mapping the uneven boundary between urban and non-urban spaces in Asia (McGee. T 1991)

Desakota zones (literally translated as village-town) represent the evolution of urbanisation in both urban and peri-urban areas of Vietnam. They comprise opposing rural/urban livelihoods and mono-functional communication, transport and economic systems. Desakota systems occupy, and diffuse out from a continuum of conditions that comprise predominantly urban and rural characteristics as the two extreme ends. It is therefore survival of the fittest, with the flow of funds in to the pockets of those who have political and economic control of future infrastructure.

Figure 4. Overlap of two distinct activities namely agriculture in urbanized setting (Researchgate.net 2017)

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In these emerging systems, inhabitants operate a transient economy that facilitates expansion in the urban over the rural, to face detriment of formal and informal activities.

This amalgam alters once sustainable relationships between livelihoods, the ecological services necessary for their upkeep, and methods of environmental management.

Subsequently desakota zones of the mega urban areas of Vietnam embody a juxtaposed and transient set of activities and actors and have thus formed what is perceived as a politically acceptable rural urban interface surrounding the mega urban regions of Vietnam (McGee, 1991).

Figure 5. Desakota region in northern Hanoi (WorldLandscapeArchitecture 2015)

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Developing Countries - Emerging Issues of the rural/urban Interface The peri-urban poor in developing countries depend predominantly on natural resources for income, as their livelihoods are typically based upon agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and forestry. Thus with rapid urbanization taking place, the economic impacts of land use change at the interface are disproportionately absorbed by the poor due to their high vulnerability to service or habitat loss. In addition due to an overall lack of economic influence, resources, alternative sources of income, shelter and services, the cost of lost land is very high, thus creating a devastating domino effect for low income inhabitants (Dodman, 2009).

As essential ecosystem services are lost through the process of urbanisation, the periurban poor are also forced to remunerate services previously acquired for free (Dodman, 2009).

The transitory nature of the rural urban interface causes a deficit in political power and influence; “The Periurban areas are away from the political power and without any official urban status. These areas lack the institutional capacities and governance structures to respond to the processes of change in a positive way� ( Ar. Manita Saxena, Ar. Suman Sharma, 2015).

This lack of response coupled with the rapid turnover of mobile communities from an array of cultures causes large-scale disorganisation and poor defense of community land use interests. This leads to poor compensation when land is converted. In addition low-income families are often pushed to marginalized land at the interface rendering them highly exposed to natural elements and more vulnerable to environmental disasters. “The industry has considered peri-urban areas as sources of materials essential for urban life. The middle class has found peri-urban areas as a potential residential zone for houses with golf courses and other recreational facilities. The local government has considered the fringes of urban areas as a site for locating landfills, waste dumps,

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peripheral freeways, airports or noisy and toxic industries.� ( Ar. Manita Saxena, Ar. Suman Sharma, 2015).

As urbanization rates continue to increase along with demand, the exploitation of the interface and the vulnerabilities felt by its inhabitants percolates through to urban populations. For example ecosystem degradation at the interface results in a loss of food production for urban markets directly contributing to rising food prices, thus affecting all urban inhabitants, but also disproportionately impacting on the poor (Dodman, 2009), (Tacoli, 2003).

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Emerging Issues of the Interface in Vietnam In the context of this dissertation it is important to review the issues experienced at the rural-urban interface across Vietnam, that have evolved at both a generic and particular scale. • Land use: In Hanoi from 1991- 2003 a total of 5 new urban districts have been established, which have been formed by the consumption of land from peri-urban districts. In terms of land use change, agricultural land has had the largest deficit, decreasing by almost 2,123ha in order to accommodate urban expansion (Nguyen, 2006)

Figure 6. Urban Expansion of Hanoi 1992-2003 (Researchgate.net 2004)

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Water Surface water: In Viet Nam, data on surface water quality is poor. However, limited testing reveals rising pollution levels in downstream sections of the major rivers (WEPA-db.net, 2017).

A number of surveys conducted by the Institute of Tropical Techniques and Environmental Protection indicate that the level of contaminants in rivers in the periurban areas of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Hai Duong, Bac Giang, Hue, Da Nang, Quang Nam and Dong Nai, are higher than permissible levels. Only 15% of all industrial parks and economic processing zones at the Ho Chi Min interface have wastewater treatment facilities and according to environmentalists the Southern Key Economic Zone at HO Chi Minh requires investment in of over 1,000,000,000 USD to deal with pollution caused by these facilities (WEPA-db.net, 2017). Figure 7 demonstrates, the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (which must be kept low for the respiration of aquatic flora and fauna) and NH4 (ammonia) levels, a serious contributor to aquatic life devastation through the eutrophication process. Both of these elements exceed national standards across Vietnam.

Figure 7. Surface water quality running into Vietnamese Rivers (WEPA-db.net, 2017)

Municipal wastewater: In peri-urban areas a severe lack of infrastructure and a disregard for investment has led to the large-scale informal disposal of wastewater.

Vietnam produces approximately 2,000,000 mÂł of municipal wastewater per day, which is predominantly discharged without appropriate treatment into nearby rivers, lakes and

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ponds. Overall Less than 10% of urban wastewater in Vietnam is centrally treated (World Bank, 2017).

Figure 8. Wastewater in the peri-urban village of Nam Dihn, North Vietnam (WEPA-db.net, 2017)

Ground water: Groundwater resources in Vietnam are abundant, with an estimated total potential exploitable aquifer reserve of nearly 60,000,000,000mÂł per year.

However in the Red River and Mekong River Deltas groundwater has been exploited beyond the recharge capacity at the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City interfaces creating a deficit in water table levels. This causes a domino effect leading to land subsidence and salinity intrusion, especially in the Mekong River Delta. (WEPA-db.net, 2017)

Figure 9. Salt water intrusion and drought at the Mekong River Delta (Vietnamnet.vn 2017)

Waste treatment: Over the last decade the collection, treatment, disposal and recycling of waste has improved in the major urban regions of Vietnam but is

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disproportionally limited at the interface. Average collection rates remain low in many cities ranging from 80% in urban cores to 45% in peri-urban and interface zones. The lack of service coverage in interface regions, which are typically occupied by lowincome families has become a serious issue as self -disposal is often the norm in these areas. Moreover the rapid industrialization and conversion of land for urban activity at the interface is eating up appropriate land needed for the adequate disposal and treatment of the increasing amount of waste (Schneider et al., 2017)

Figure 10. Informal waste disposal in peri-urban Nha Trang (enviet-consult, 2017)

Soil contamination: In Vietnam the spread of mine spoil and tailings and the use of heavy metals in ore processing which is often artisanal and unregulated at the interface, has resulted in large scale soil pollution. It is estimated that some 5,000– 10,000 ha of peri-urban agricultural areas in Vietnam are contaminated with cadmium (Nguyen, Duc and Cong Vinh, 2002).

Figure 11. Informal mining in Luc Yen, Vietnam (GIA 2017)

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In Dai Dong village (Lam District) at the Hanoi interface, large-scale soil contamination has occurred through cottage industries reprocessing copper waste. Soil contamination extended to more than 300 m away from the recycling operation (Nguyen, Duc and Cong Vinh, 2002).

Food security: Food availability in Vietnam is paralleled with rural-urban linkages in the form of intensive connections between producers and markets, especially those provided by local traders at the interface. Urban demand stimulates production, but only when the preconditions such as access to land, water, labour and capital are present. However as rapid urbanization consumes these conditions for anthrpocentirc activity, food availability becomes increasingly scarce at the interface and this condition often percolates into the urban fabric (Pulliat, 2015).

Figure 12. Agricultural produce affected by intense floodwaters flowing over impermeable surfaces on the Red River Delta, Vietnam (phys.org, 2017)

Thuy Duong a district of Hue is rapidly developing into an urban commune. However, agricultural land conversion has resulted in pressure on people to combine activities in the agricultural and non-agricultural sector and to shift to other forms of employment.

This has put huge pressures on local food production, which has percolated through to the city of Hue (Phuc, 2015).

Air quality: Rapid urbanization has put pressure on surrounding peri-urban areas through the clearing of vegetation for built form. This slows the process of filtering toxic compounds from the local atmosphere, as landscapes that were once permeable and shady become dry and solid. This in turn creates a “heat island� effect, creating higher

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average temperatures across the region. This not only effects pollution levels, but can also reduce crop yields and further affect local water supplies (Cornet and Bang, 2017).

Figure 13. Air pollution from industrial sites in peri-urban Hanoi (Vietnam.net, 2015)

Energy: Deforestation has detrimental impacts on a fuel wood and timber resources that local interface communities depend upon. Vietnam has the second highest rate of deforestation of primary forests in the world. These natural systems are a valuable resource of fuel, shelter and food for low-income families at interface zones (Lang, 2017).

Figure 14. Deforestation for agriculture in Vietnam's Central peri-urban Highlands (Panda.org, 2017)

Erosion: Approximately 60% of the total land area and over 70% of the country’s population are repeatedly threatened by storms and large scale flooding events. These issues are exacerbated in interface regions. Low-income families often occupy informal settlement in areas prone to natural disaster. With already under resourced and

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inadequate infrastructures in place the ability of interface inhabitants to draw on natural systems to prevent and deal with disaster is a major issue (Hugo, 2007).

Figure 15. Extensive flooding hit the Da Nang interface in 2013 (VietnamLawMagazine, 2013)

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Emerging Issues of the Interface in the Hanoi (North), Da Nang (Mid) and Ho Chi Min City (South) The rural urban interface of the Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh urban centers vary significantly in their geography, demography and resource endowments. This chapter will therefore present specific issues surrounding the interface at each urban centre.

Hanoi Land Use Change Rapid urbanization caused by population growth is accelerating the transition of agricultural land into urban land in Vietnam. To accommodate this rapid urbanisation, the Vietnamese government plans to convert 450,000 ha of agricultural land to urban land by 2025 (Pham et al., 2014)

Figure 16. Land use change in Hanoi 1993-2007 (Pham et al., 2014)

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Figure 17. Land cover area change Hanoi 1993-2007(Pham et al., 2014)

In Hanoi, a major shift in administrative status in its peri-urban districts triggered the conversion of rural agricultural land use. From 1993–2007, peri-urban communes in Hanoi became designated as urban wards. These contemporary urban districts received economic incentives to convert agricultural land into infrastructures and residential land in order to adhere to the criteria of classification of an urban district.

Once the urban status has been achieved former interface communes must modify their economic and land use structures, primarily through the reduction of agricultural activity used to support their livelihoods, in order to become an urban unit. This process has triggered land speculation, social inequalities, accelerated the loss of agricultural land and environmental systems (Pham et al., 2014).

Through the pressures of population growth and consequential reduction of agricultural land, peri-urban agriculture in Hanoi has become largely intensified. In 2002, cropping

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intensity in Hanoi reached over 220%, as 87,628 ha of land was sown with only a total available area of 39,826 .

The process of urbanization also alters the spatial pattern of agricultural landscapes. In the rapidly urbanizing interface regions of Hanoi agricultural patches are reduced in size and become less connected through irregular edges and juxtaposed rural urban surfaces, leading to habitat fragmentation (Pham et al., 2014).

Land Use Change and Social Inequality A recent case study in a peri-urban village of Hanoi undergoing rapid transformation demonstrated that approximately 60% of farmland was consumed for the construction of new urban areas and infrastructure. Through interviews with household members, the study found that many households benefited from their proximity to new infrastructures such as universities and urban centres. New forms of income such as renting out boarding houses to students and migrant workers has become an important source for the majority of these interface households.

However, a large number of households demonstrated an income deficit as they did not have the appropriate resources to contend with others. Many households who relied on agriculture for a source of income and to sustain their families have become jobless, particularly the elderly and less educated farmers. The case study revealed signs of a rapidly increasing social differentiation among local households at the interface (Tran, 2012).

Figure 18. urban area of Linh Đàm in Hoàng Mai district vs. periurban village of Vạn Phúc, in Hà Đông district.(masteremergencyarchitecture, 2017)

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Land Use Change and Environmental Degradation

Figure 19. Soldiers collect dead fish floating in the polluted West Lake in Hanoi (tvtsonline, 2016)

As agricultural land is converted for urban use, environmental stresses increase. This is primarily found in peri-urban areas of Hanoi and is predominantly due to the piecemeal nature of newer settlements, increased pollution and waste from a variety of industrial and residential sources as well as increased motorization for employment, and an overall inadequacy in public-sector financial resources to manage rapid development (Douglas, 2002).

Land Use Change and Food Security Due to the rapid expansion of urban areas and therefore conversion of agricultural land, peri-urban districts are barely meeting the needs of their own population and are unable to supplement the supply of food for urban Hanoi residents Pulliat, 2015).

Land Use Change and Pollution Hanoi now has 20 major industries, including chemical, textile, electrical goods, mechanical engineering and food processing. New industries have emerged such as automobile and motorcycle assembly plants, television part production and television assembly plants, and consumer electronics. Many of these industries are situated on once rich fertile agricultural land, which contributed to the regulation of the cities climate and reduction of air pollution and waste production. Furthermore historically the agricultural livelihoods in the region operated at a local scale.

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A recent study has shown that 70% industries in Hanoi are using technologies that are at least 20 years out of date and that very few industrial factory’s operate waste treatment systems (Ahn, 2004).

Figure 20. Polluted lake making way for largel-scale infrastructural conversion (tvtsonline, 2016)

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Da Nang Flooding Vietnams large urban centers are close to coastal or river delta sites at low elevation.

The geography of these cities makes them highly vulnerable to sea level rise, high tides and storm surge, typhoons, and extreme rainfall events (Huynh et al, 2015).

Figure 21. Distribution of low elevation regions in Vietnam vulnerable to flooding events (EarthIntsitute 2006)

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The urban expansion of Da Nang is inhibited by the sea to the north and east, and by mountains to the north and west, forcing the city to develop southwards onto the floodplain of the Vu Gia – Thu Bon river system.These geographical and hydrological conditions create an intense fast flowing river network.

To further contribute to vulnerability of Da Nang to extreme flooding events, the river’s behavior is modified by several hydro-electric reservoirs of varying sizes upstream (Huynh et al, 2015).

Figure 22. Location of hydroelectric reservoirs upstream of Da Nang city (RFA.Org 2017)

The result is that in extreme events, floodwaters behave differently. For example roads become barriers to overland flow, built form and landfill eliminate flood retention areas, and restrict or occupy flood channels, resulting in an intensified, extreme and unmanageable situation (Huynh et al, 2015).

Figure 23. Hydrological inundation in the Hoa Vang Province, Da Nang (ABC 2008)

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Ho Chi Minh City Water pollution Ho Chi Min City’s (HCMC) peri-urban interface provides a unique and challenging arena for environmental management and pollution regulation. Despite ongoing efforts, the Vietnamese government is unable to fully regulate the industry from illegally releasing untreated and often highly polluted wastewater. The result is that farmers in HCMC’s interface must now compete with lower crop yields or even failures having a knock on effect in the local agricultural economy. Food and water safety for locals is also a great concern due to an influx of pollutants in irrigation and drinking water. The Doi Moi policy focused on the ‘modernization’ of the country, however neglected the large-scale impact on environmental degradation and local communities’ and livelihoods and therefore resilience (Perrett, 2008).

Figure 24. Extract from Vietnam News 6 April 2016. (vitensevidesinternational, 2016)

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Figure 25. Polluted watercourse in an informal settlement at the HCMC interface (NIPS, 2017)

Air pollution

Figure 26. Transformation of cropland to built up land 1990-2012. (researchgate.net, 2014)

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Figure 27.The proportion of households owning motorcycles 1993-2008. (oc3apcgroup4, 2016)

Through the process of urbanization there has been a large increase in the mobility of HCMC inhabitants; Motorcycles are a main contributor to emissions of CO2, hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds while trucks transporting goods are a major contributor to vehicle-related emissions of SO2 and NO2. Moreover the conversion of agricultural land at the HCMC interface to land for urban use reduces the general amount of vegetation, a fundamental element of climate regulation. Industrial plants contribute largely to SO2 (92 per cent) and CO2 emissions (Cornet and Bang, 2017).

Waste pollution

HCMC is facing an exponentially increasing amount of municipal solid waste. The total volume of is estimated about 7200–7800 tons/day (excluding waste sludge). The increasing MSW generation rate in HCMC of 10%–15% has resulted, from expanding urban areas and development of land at the interface (Cornet and Bang, 2017).

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Figure 28. Trend of MSW generation in Ho Chi Minh City from 1992-2010 (ICSWM, 2011)

Figure 29. Informal MSW dumping at the HCMC interface (giaduc.net 2017)

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The Link The rural-urban interface in the developing cities of Vietnam is a volatile zone of contradictory environments. Generated by urban transformation as these cities and their infrastructure urbanise and expand, it is characterized by isolation, transition, decay, imposition, degradation, globalization, loss of locale and monofuction.

Adaptability, connectivity and transferability already primed but hidden in the speed of change have the potential to reprogramme these problems as dynamic and responsive solutions. Reprogramming problems as solutions could create flexible four-dimensional response to support future investment of green capitalism, with solutions at multiple levels of engagement.

The effects of large scale land conversion through the process of urbanization, which is the primary catalyst to issues at the interface, has the potential to take advantage of the interface’s negative and fragmented nature through the introduction of integrated planning techniques. These would act as directors, connecting and enhancing the ecological value of urbanization. For example the diversification of agricultural plots and the enhancement of small-scale communities could act as a response to fragmented development. Adapting and remodeling “waste� land at the interface in this approach would establish a green infrastructure for expanding urban cores.

Water is a fundamental resource in anthropocentric and biocentric systems. The opportunity to insert a series of small-scale, hydrologically sensitive landscape interventions such as flood defense systems, filtration systems, reuse and recycling systems and security of potable water could offer solutions to problems such as interrupted supply and pollution. There is the potential to disrupt the ongoing negative cycle of issues and re-programme it to benefit not only the interface but its associated rural and urban influencers.

The integration of landscape elements such as low cost, high value vegetative technologies, green infrastructures, closed-loop community based systems, and environmental planning technologies must be considered as a key element in adaptive

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and integrated pollution control. Alleviating small-scale pollution events at the “microscale� interface level, will eventually begin to transfer upwards into the urban fabric.

The interface landscape is highly disjointed and hosts many interrelated issues. The interaction and connectivity of small-scale landscape interventions can effectively work their way upward extracting the positive elements from the problem and enhancing the potential to establish connected solutions. The degree to which each of these interventions can provide anthropocentric and biocentric benefits at a variety of scales and create interconnected flows between patches of resources is the degree to which these developing cities will create a third typology, the eco-interface. In all problems surrounding the interface, the exchange of information is essential for adaption at the micro scale across mega rural and urban regions.

Sustainability, biodiversity, resilience, and ecosystem services like clean air, carbon sequestration, and water quality are now increasingly incorporated into planning and design of cities. The connection between these general goals and the specifics of implementation is a complex terrain. However the unique mobile landscape, which makes up the interface provides a strong basis for applying the interrelationships between ecological and urban functions at a range of scales.

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Summary of Case Studies as Resilience Models for Emerging Issues East Kolkata Wetlands (Appendix 1) Spread of 12,500ha The East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), located on the rural urban interface of Kolkata city (India) is one of the largest functioning assemblages of sewage fed fish-ponds in the world. The EKW supports integrated agriculture and aquaculture based resource recovery practice, providing livelihood and support to a large and ever growing, economically underprivileged population of approximately 20,000 families which depend upon the various wetland products and services, primarily fish and vegetables for sustenance.

As the city of Kolkata continues to develop as a reaction to rapid urbanization the ability of the EKW to act not only to act as a sink for city sewage, municipal waste and industrial effluents but also utilize this in order to produce large scale economic benefits and employment generation through resource based recovery activities is paramount for the cities resilience. In summary EKW purifies the waste of the expanding metropolis, generates a multitude of anthropocentric and biocentric resources, provides employment, houses a diverse array of rich flora and fauna and microbes with an immense potential for application in countless systems. The EKW has established itself as a contemporary example of integrating the natural resources of the wetland system through the ingenuity of local communities and traditional knowledge. The EKW provides framework for community based resilience at the rural urban interface (Carlisle, 2015).

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Figure 30. East Kolkatta Wetlands, closed loop system (ScenarioJournal 2017)

Urban Agriculture in Casablanca (Appendix 2) The UAC project explores and addresses the question of how the integration of green infrastructure can be retrofitted into existing systems and in parallel act as a dynamic planning mechanism for sustainable and resilient urban expansion.

The intelligence behind the approach of the UAC project is that it establishes a practical response to the transitioning spatial patterns and sprawl within developing urban growth centers. Moreover it presents the project as a concept for an urbanregional open-space structure, based on Urban Agriculture coordinated by the integration of planning of urban-rural linkages in poly-central metropolises.

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The UAC project was divided into 4 main bodies in order to cover all aspects of the integration urban agriculture:

Figure 31. Distribution of Urban Agriculture solutions by the UAC project (Weebly, 2017)

Urban Agriculture + Industry An exploration into the use of closed water loop systems via treated wastewater from industrial sites being reused in the local agricultural industry or for production purposes within the industrial site.

Urban Agriculture + Informal Settlement An exploration into the amalgamation of agricultural activity with local settlement areas in order to improve integration at the interface thus steering its future resilience.

Urban Agriculture + Peri-urban Tourism This project, located at the interface 20km north east of the City in the Oued el Maleh valley attempted to establish a symbiosis between the needs and potentials of the city

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dwellers who visit the area and the inhabitants of the valley who practice small-scale agricultural activity.

Urban Agriculture + Healthy Food Production This research was based on developing contemporary organic food production at the agro- ecological pedagogical Farm of Dar Bouazza. The idea was to establish a direct and rational relationship between producers and consumers (Kasper and Rau, 2012) Yangtze River Delta Project (Appendix 3) The YRDP is a collaborative investigation of flood risk and the pressures of climate change and extreme events in the rapidly developing landscape of metropolitan Shanghai. The YRDP addresses the use of natural systems and atmospheric sciences.

The project seeks to establish nature as a fundamental element of the urban realm.

The YRDP utilizes land to assist the channeling of water, allowing a certain amount of control of its speed and velocity and also allowing for the dynamic movement and deposition of sediment, which in turn can be utilised for development.

The low-tech but large-scale intervention of earthen berms designed by the YRDP moderate damage from storm surge by attenuating wave energy, reducing water velocity, and momentarily capturing floodwaters, allowing water to be released slowly through absorption (Seavitt, 2013).

Figure 32. New landscape conditions of the YRDP (ScenarioJournal, 2017)

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How Can the Rural Urban Interface Contribute to Resilience in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City?

HANOI The Dominance of Urban Development As urbanisation continues to increase in Hanoi the opportunity to implement and integrate contemporary landscape based planning initiatives, to shape the interface and balance the conflicts faced between hybridised environments is key.

Although the Perimeter City 238 (PC238) (Appendix 1.4) project is a response to the city of Lincoln Nebraska, U.S., the city itself faces paralleled issues of land conversion and an urbanising interface to that of Hanoi. The PC238 project seeks to provide an alternative to accommodate a doubling population into a plan that achieves three primary goals; to stabilize, protect, and maximize the highly sought after peri-urban edge.

Figure 33. Perimeter city 238 future condition (Ferentinos et al., 2013)

This plan is achieved by utilising infrastructure to concentrate growth into new linear cities, or Fingers, linking Lincoln’s satellite towns to the existing urban fabric. These

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satellite towns operate under similar conditions to that of Hanoi’s Desakota regions.

The result is a planned asterisk shaped metropolis that exploits the perimeter and increases contact between city and agricultural land, thus reducing the dominance of development at the interface. The project maintains scale and character of the city, and warrants the sustained presence of agriculture, industry, and ecological systems that define its origins and productive future.

Figure 34. Perimeter city 238, 11 new linear cities (Ferentinos et al., 2013)

Although this project is practiced in a more economically developed country, the concept of large-scale resilient planning is directly transferable to Hanoi. The potential of this concept to be implemented in the case of Hanoi would not only serve to spatially balance the distribution of rural and urban elements at the interface, but also to establish new localised communities based around natural resources such as wetlands, create economic rural-urban linkages, providing sources of income through agricultural activity and fundamentally reduce the stresses and dominance of urban development (Ferentinos, Bunza and Thelander, 2012).

Intensification of Agriculture The loss of agricultural land through urban development coupled with the intensification of agricultural activity to provide for a growing population has caused large-scale issues with regards to food security, social inequalities and environmental stresses such as land subsidence at the Hanoi interface.

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The UAC project (Appendix 1.2) provides a basis for implementing a framework for the distribution of agricultural activity throughout the urban, interface and rural fabrics of Hanoi, thus relieving pressures of intensified activity in peri-urban regions. One of the key focuses of the project is the transformation of single use agricultural areas into multi-use living space. The UAC tests this research through four conditions (Kasper and Rau, 2012): Urban Agriculture + Industry: Agricultural intensification at the Hanoi Interface is largely spurred by the conversion of productive land for large-scale industries. Thus there is potential to integrate closed water loop systems such as those found in the EKW (Appendix 1.1) through treated wastewater from industrial sites being reused in the local agricultural industry or for production purposes within the industrial site (Carlisle, 2015).

Urban Agriculture + Informal Settlement: Large-scale development at the interface is often characterized by informal slum settlement. Thus the amalgamation of agricultural activity with local informal settlement areas to provide a community-based framework of inputs and outputs reduces the need to intensify activities. The EKW is home to a plethora of wet and dry agricultural activity, which not only satisfies the direct interface community with food and jobs, but also contributes to community’s economic niche through fish exports into the urban centre.

Urban Agriculture + Peri-Urban Tourism: Hanoi is global tourist destination with approximately 7,000,000 tourists visiting per annum. This further intensifies agricultural activity at the interface. To reduce this intensification there is the potential to incorporate the use of productive aquaculture/agriculture systems such as EKW which primarily service local communities at the interface but also interlink with attractive tourism activities such as landscape parks, productive nature reserves and cultural home stays.

Urban Agriculture + Healthy Food Production: Many low-income farmers suffer from intensive agricultural production at the Hanoi interface. Thus there is potential to secure income generation for peasant farmers through the integration of a networking-farming cooperative to ensure equal resilient systems across all interface inhabitants. The UAC

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project seeks to provide resources for the education of organic food production. By educating small communities at the interface in agriculture, its intensification would be reduced. Moreover educating communities to harvest particular products has the potential to generate small markets for exchange between interface communities allowing them to rely on each other for an array of product whilst also generating income from other services.

Loss of Environmental Systems Hanoi’s environmental systems are rapidly decreasing through land use conversion at the interface. Considering the low lying interface regions of Hanoi and their proximity to the Red River, a multi scalar approach to remunerate the biocentric systems destroyed by urban development whilst simultaneously redefining inevitable land conversion through the intervention of dynamic hydrological systems must be considered.

In terms of sustainable environmental systems, the EKW (Appendix 1.1) is one of the largest functioning; productive, closed loop ecosystems in the world. The ability of the EKW to simultaneously uphold both biocentric and anthropocentric activities and actors provides a framework to integrate existing and base future interface developments in Hanoi.

As interface habitats in Hanoi are highly fragmented there is potential to strategically integrate a series of closed loop wetland systems in close proximity to the Red River, that parallel the sustainable conditions of the EKW across large areas of the interface.

This series of closed loop systems would in turn benefit the local communities surrounding them, re-programme intensive sprawl and fragmentation at the interface thus guiding peri-urban development.

As new development is inevitable at the Hanoi interface, integrating a landscape system such as the EKW, proven to be productive for both anthropocentric and biocentric inhabitants, as a “rural-urban core� is a strong basis for growing future resilient communities. From a macro scale perspective a series of small wetland communities that are interlinked would essentially offer a large-scale resilient and long term alternative to current conditions found at the interface with the potential to percolate into the existing urban fabric (Carlisle, 2015).

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With community based closed loop systems established, the social inequalities of small-scale communities would be reduced, as livelihoods are once again primarily based on supporting the locale as well as extracting from the locale. Inputs, outputs and exchanges are based on the ability of the community as a network of actors and not controlled by ulterior pressures of nearby urban areas. Not only is there a physical transfer in terms of the services needed to better the communities lifestyle, but also a transfer of knowledge and information, which ensures the resilient future of these communities.

DA NANG Da Nang is renowned for its vulnerability to extreme flooding events, which are enhanced by three specific conditions at the interface: topography, hydrological modification and floodplain development (Huynh et al, 2015).

Topography The majority of the Da Nang interface is situated on low-lying floodplains (Huynh et al, 2015). This presents an opportunity to implement a series of multi-scalar landscape interventions to prevent and manage extreme flooding events and to simultaneously address a number of economic, social and environmental issues such as informal settlement in the Hoa Tien and Hoa Chau communes, agricultural intensification and salinity intrusion throughout the interface and fragmentation at the southern pat of the interface.

The YRDP (Appendix 1.3) employs the use of a passive polder system. The passive polder retains a semi-enclosed area as an element of the immediate hydrologic watershed, this eliminates issues such as land subsidence found in traditional closed polder systems. The open polder functions as a momentary reservoir, retaining floodwaters and gradually releasing them via gravity. The open polder system accepts overflow and provides a passive system for the slow manageable release of water drastically reducing the severity of flow during an extreme event (Seavitt, 2013).

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The increase of soil fertility from sedimentation in polder landscapes has the potential to offset intensive agricultural production and soil contamination at the Da Nang interface. The steep topographies of dykes, which create polder landscapes, have the potential to be stepped or terraced mimicking that of historic rice paddy landscapes.

Moreover, planning projects at the Mississippi have opted to redirect sediment deposition through vegetative systems toward the delta, naturally building topographies to create new defensive lobes (McKinney and Tacker, 2006). This essentially reprogramme the low-lying topographies of floodplains, with a series of stable high grounds, which once optimized can be used for the development of infrastructures away from the risk of flooding.

From a planning perspective the sheer size of landform used to create passive polder landscapes has the potential to shape the inevitable ongoing piecemeal urban land conversion at the Da Nang interface. For example a series of dykes at the interface could redistribute/re-programme sprawl to create closed loop communities which rely on filtered water, fertile soil and enhanced agricultural conditions to sustain themselves.

Thus the polder Landscape and associated dyke becomes a multifunctional wet/dry landscape element.

At the macro scale the retention and slow release of water from passive polder systems has the potential to be distributed through integrated canals and swales for irrigation of the surrounding agricultural landscape. Thus reducing the issues of salinity and episodes of drought in the region. In times of prolonged hydrological inundation soft canal systems could provide important transport and refuge links when existing infrastructures are submerged or damaged. The use of deep wide canal systems with regulated flood flow would offer an alternative form to vehicular transportation.

Hydrological Modification A fundamental contributor to the severity of prolonged and enhanced flooding events in Da Nang is the unpredictable impact of water flow from a number of upstream hydroelectric reservoirs on the Vu Gia – Thu Bon River system. In order to manage flow during extreme events multiple small-scale systems that operate together to produce one integrated solution must be considered.

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The EKW covers over 3000ha of interface land (Appendix 1.1). The multiplicity of small-scale landscape elements such as ditches, ponds and canals acts as a natural drainage and flood flow zone, minimizing extreme flooding events and reducing the impacts on interface inhabitants (Carlisle, 2015).

Although the EKW is predominantly a natural system, the potential to integrate a series of small scale interlinked hydrological landscape elements with existing hydrological systems, which parallel the conditions of the EKW at the Da Nang interface would offer a long term resilient solution to mitigating intense flow rates during flooding events.

At present large amounts of the Da Nang interface are set undergo development to accommodate the rapidly urbanizing population. In order to ensure a resilient future for these interface regions, integrating large-scale soft landscape structures at the planning process and allowing them to establish a framework of resilient hydrological systems before construction would offer an inexpensive and self sustaining solution to flood mitigation. Not only would these systems deal with flooding events, but also would allow the anthropocentric and biocentric conditions of the interface to interweave with one another. In other words the wetland system has the potential to deal with wastewater and sewage, increase biodiversity in the region, create jobs and become a valuable economic a social hub of community intelligence. A primary example of this is the Aqueous Ecologies project, which imagines a future for Willets Point (Appendix 1.5), a derelict peninsula in Queens, NY. New ecologies, economies, and cultural identities of the city are intertwined with landscape-based solutions for wastewater management and treatment. The project proposes a productive ecology of closed-loop fish farming as a catalyst for urban development (Ezban, 2013).

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Figure 35. Wastewater production informing scales of urban development (Ezban, 2013)

If a number of large small-scale systems were to be employed the resulting landscape has the potential to represent a heterogeneous patchwork of managed conditions manifested by wet and dry land, production sites, maintenance, habitation, transportation and cultivation. Thus forming a gradient from the dense urban edge to the agricultural hinterland.

Floodplain Development A primary issue contributing to the severity of flooding at the Da Nang interface is the severity of destruction and unpredictable flow rates and patterns caused by urbanized impermeable infrastructures at the interface.

With rapid urbanization continuing to consume the soft low lying floodplain landscapes of the Da Nang interface, an integrated approach to accepting hydrological inundation and providing for the increasing urban population at the must be considered. An ongoing issue experienced across interface regions in Vietnam including Da Nang is the piecemeal informal/formal construction of housing that is often more susceptible to destruction from extreme events.

The NHA floating village project in Bangkok, Thailand (Appendix 1.6) offers a multi layered and integrated approach to accepting hydrological inundation and working with

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extreme flooding events. The project focuses on a strong social/community component through awareness of the relevance of working with nature when dealing with flood conditions; this has been achieved through the design of a complete floating village.

The floating houses of Ijburg in the Netherlands also offer a contemporary solution to a growing population, two thirds of which dwells below sea level. The floating homes are supported by buoyant concrete tubs, submerged in the water to a depth of half a story.

This infrastructure is both reactive in terms of responding and accommodating flooding and defensive in terms of its solid structural capabilities (World Landscape Architecture, 2017).

Figure 36. Exploded axon of the NHA Floating Village Project Bangkok (World Landscape Architecture, 2013)

The ingenuity behind these projects is that they connect both floating and existing hard infrastructures, which essentially allows water to flow freely across the landscape, reducing flow rates and directional change of extreme events, not to mention protecting built form from destruction.

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As much of the Da Nang interface is undergoing development, the integration of floating urban elements in areas where flow is altered by heavy infrastructures would help to reduce the impacts of extreme events. Furthermore the potential for these villages to connect to the dykes of polder landscapes, would further reduce flooding impacts, as floodwater within the polder is generally much calmer during the event.

Other projects such as the Amphibious Container House by architect Richard Moreta (Meinhold and Meinhold, 2017) and the Makoko floating school project by designer KunlĂŠ Adeyemi (Nleworks.com, 2017) are other simple cost effective solutions for resilient infrastructures.

Figure 37. Amphibious Container House by Richard Moreta (Meinhold and Meinhold, 2017).

Figure 38. Makoko Floating School by KunlĂŠ Adeyemi (Nleworks.com, 2017)

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It is the interconnection and extraction of multi-uses from these interventions to create resilient interface communities, which not only address the issues of flooding at the interface but essentially use it as an ecosystem service.

Ho Chi Minh City Anthropocentric and biocentric conditions at the HCMC interface are continuing to undergo an accelerated social, economic, and environmental transformation in order to adapt to a contemporary ‘ultra’ urban lifestyle. With this transformation the level of associated pollution has climaxed and warranted drastic intervention.

Air Although the city of Stuttgart (Germany) is located in a more economically developed country, the region comprises 179 municipalities and is marked by a polycentric structure around several urban centres. This polycentric urban structure is similar to that of HCMC. Paralleling HCMC the economic success of the city is putting pressures on the interface through saturated and highly polluted transportation networks, a rapidly urbanising interface and large-scale pollution from industrial activity.

Figure 39. Stuttgart Green infrastructure (Climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu., 2017).

A Climate Atlas provides standardised climatic assessments for the 179 municipalities in the Stuttgart region (Appendix 1.7). The Atlas comprises a series of maps which

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demonstrate regional wind patterns, flows of cold air, air pollution concentrations, and other relevant information required to inform planners on how to optimise the urban climate and inform new projects and retrofits.

Figure 40. Stuttgart Climate Atlas (Climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu., 2017).

In addition to responding to local climate characteristics, the green infrastructure plan for Stuttgart operates a set of principles which form the basis for the planning recommendations such as; vegetative integration of developments, well connected and maintained green spaces, air delivery corridors, Climate responsive development, avoidance of sprawl and vegetation preservation (Climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu, 2017).

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Figure 41. Connected green infrastructure in Stuttgart, Germany (Climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu., 2017).

In this context, in order to transition the social-ecological system of the HCMC interface onto a more resilient path, a series of multi-functional landscape interventions that parallel Stuttgart’s green infrastructural system has the potential to be employed as a guiding principle to harness air pollution and spur future sustainable development. By using open spaces at the interface in the most efficient multi-purpose way, inclusive of both ecological and socio-economic functions the primary issues surrounding pollution can be managed through the appropriation of green infrastructures. Along side this; the use of green infrastructure provides numerous ulterior economic and social functions to combat the multitude of emerging issues at the interface.

Enhancing and interweaving green and grey infrastructures will ultimately increase the quality of life of the population. This is essential for the HCMC interface to stay attractive for both anthropocentric and biocentric inhabitants. The inclusive concept of a “landscape park” in HCMC would integrate green infrastructure into the overall development of the region and underline its potential as locational factor that is worth preserving and improving. Through its high ecological and recreational value, the use of green infrastructure that parallels the systems employed in Stuttgart would act as counterpoint to the region’s rapidly developing grey infrastructure and thus offset harmful air pollution.

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Figure 42. Interweaving green/grey infrastructure in Stuttgart, Germany (Climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu., 2017).

The functionality behind Stuttgart’s green infrastructure plan is the use of multiple small-scale interventions that addresses a series of problems into multiple long-term solutions.

A fundamental landscape intervention in Stuttgart’s green urbanism plan is the prevention of converging urban archipelagos. The convergence of urban topographies at the HCMC interface is large-scale contributor of rising pollution levels. Thus the opportunity to integrate green infrastructure systems found in Stuttgart along with the local, closed loop blue/green infrastructures of EKW to reprogramme urbanisation at the interface has the potential to not only combat pollution through absorption and sequestration but also reduce mobility/migration and congestion through communitybased activity.

Water The geographical location of HCMC interface on the delta of the Mekong River, establishes water as a fundamental element in both anthropocentric livelihoods and biocentric environments and therefore can be seen as the key to base future adaption of interface development. Water in all forms

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(surface/ground/flowing/waste/potable/irrigation/flooding/costal) at the interface is under constant pressure from rapid ongoing development. Thus a multi-scalar approach is required to relieve this resource of extraction and integrate it to resilient development solutions.

The multi-purpose EKW (Appendix 1.1) system operates as a contemporary “gestalt�, an organized whole that is more than the sum of its parts. The assemblage of approximately 270 fish-ponds naturally replenish polluted hydrologies that enter the system as basis for future use. In other words the natural large-scale filtration of polluted water is a considerable feat in its self, but is no more than a prerequisite for the system, but the way this water is distributed to optimize and integrate anthropocentric and biocentric activities at the interface is a step towards a resilient future (Carlisle, 2015).

Figure 43. Integrated fishponds of the East Kolkatta Wetlands (Carlisle, 2015).

The synergy of the EKW provides a framework for future interpretation and adaption at the HCMC interface. The ingenuity of adapting the problem of polluted hydrological systems to produce an economic, social and environmental solution is an essential building block to for future development.

Implementing functioning hydrological systems at the HCMC interface has the potential to be a catalyst or influencer for future urban development at both local and regional

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scales. At the macro scale the flexibility of these small-scale systems to be integrative with other landscape interventions is key to having a detrimental impact. For example Green Infrastructure in Stuttgart focuses on the strategic positioning of vegetative infrastructures and open spaces to guide air flow and air pollution and facilitate air exchanges thus reducing pollution levels. This strategic planning has the potential to be integrated with landscape element optimised for absorption and sequestration effectively channelling the reduction of pollution to specific sites across the interface, which have already established layers of anthropocentric and biocentric advantages.

Waste As the process of urbanisation consumes the HCMC interface the increasing production of municipal waste poses a serious threat, which primarily degrades ecological services. In addition the “knock on� affect it has on the pollution of natural resources such as harmful chemicals in food production and polluted water sources used in the livelihoods of interface inhabitants reduces their ability to operate and sustain themselves.

Freshkills Park, Staten Island, New York (Appendix 1.8) is one of the most outstanding examples of landscape transformation, from urban landfill to recreational and productive park. The Freshkills landfill was once a 2,200-acre, sea level wetland, which was consequently turned into 2,200 acres of hills as high as 200-feet that buried nearly 30,000 tons of trash daily. During its operation until 2001, the dump was the largest landfill in the world (Vinnitskaya, 2013).

Figure 44. Transformed wasteland of Freshkills Park, New York (Vinnitskaya, 2013).

The transformation from complete urban degradation to a multi-use, sustainable area provides an adaptive framework for environmental restoration at the HCMC interface.

In addition there is potential incorporate strategies from other projects, for example the

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transformation of landfill at the HCMC could be integrated in a wider planning initiative paralleling the use of open spaces and vegetation in Stuttgart’s Green Infrastructure programme for pollution reduction.

The Da Phuoc Landfill lies on the southern HCMC interface 24km from the city centre and covers approximately 128ha designed to take 10,800,000 tons of municipal waste.

The proximity of the landfill to the waterways of the Mekong Delta exacerbates its threat to anthorpencetric and biocentric systems across the region. The interface area surrounding the landfill is still relatively underdeveloped. The Da Phuoc landfill was only in operation for approximately a year before its operations were terminated in 2016 due to legal and political reasons, leaving 300 people jobless and over 1Trillion VND used to shut it down. Thus there is huge potential for this dormant “pile of rubbish” to be remodelled into a productive landscape element of the south HCMC interface (Vietnam.net, 2017).

Figure 45. Da Phuoc Landfill, Ho Chi Minh City (Vinnitskaya, 2013).

The use of landscape interventions that parallel that of the Aerial Sharon (Latz, 2017) and Freshkills parks to transform the Da Phuoc landfill acts as scaffold to reinterpret the site as a contemporary rural-urban core in which development polycentrically evolves from whilst simultaneously dealing with the issue of waste. Paralleling the Ariel Sharon Park the use of capping technologies such as the “bio-plastic” layer designed

by Peter Latz to protect vegetation and create rainwater collection pools could be integrated as a primary stage to kick start natural ecosystem successions. Once natural systems have established themselves small-scale development can begin to integrate with biocentric systems, growing incrementally with the rate of succession to maintain the natural formed cycles (Latz, 2017).

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Figure 46. Ariel Sharon Landfill Park, Tel Aviv, Israel (Latz, 2017).

Figure 47. Using excess waste for an art installation/tourist attraction at the Ariel Sharon Park (Latz, 2017).

In the future, 128ha of remunerated landscape wasteland could provide public open space and tourist attractions creating jobs and developing income for surrounding communes. Harmful gases released from the landfill have the potential to be reused as a sustainable energy resource powering tools for anthropocentric livelihoods. Its proximity to the river would allow for the expansion of engineered wetlands to integrate with the topography harnessing rainwater run off and providing aquacultural and agricultural activities. A vast element of green infrastructure could be used for pollution sequestration. Essentially reprogramming a landscape element of this scale would

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provide limitless possibilities for new forms of urbanism at the interface and contribute to sustaining the resilience of surrounding rural and urban areas.

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Conclusion The objective of this dissertation is to examine the rural-urban interface as a condition that although characterized by unregulated change and destructive processes has solutions, which are embedded within the causes of the problem. Utilising cities, which are undergoing rapid change and in particular focusing on Vietnam, the aims of this dissertation are to determine whether small-scale interventions are a viable option for reprogramming the landscape and thus contributing to the resilience of mega urban regions.

Analysis of the research has demonstrated that the process of urbanization at the interface in Vietnam is a complex environmental and socio-economic phenomenon. It represented by extensive changes in the interaction of anthropocentric and biocentric systems, the alteration of the earths topographical condition and disturbance of natural ecological cycles. It is a process that, from its origins has separated the mutual and historic congruence between humans and nature creating a transitory, juxtaposed and conflicting landscape.

The urban mega city has challenged national governments as the de facto driver of global economic growth. In fact, 300 of the largest global metropolitan economies contain 19% of the world’s population and produced approximately 50% of the global economic output in 2011. A recent analysis demonstrated that in 2025, over 60% of global GDP will be manufactured by approximately 600 cities with the majority of them in developing countries. At the interface this contemporary form of growth inherently creates instability. In fact the cyclical issues that evolve from large-scale urban expansion at the interface disenfranchises anthropocentric and biocentric systems.

As urbanisation continues to transform peri-urban regions; a new interface evolves as multiple layers of higher mobile change threaten complex interrelationships of existing systems leading to a collapse of resilience. It is within this change the opportunity to reveal hidden qualities of both rural and urban conditions, to reshape the interface and integrate it as a macro-scale tool for intervention exist. For example the East Kolkatta Wetlands discussed on page 35 defines a portion of the Calcutta interface through a closed-looped functioning wetland systems, based on an equilibrium of anthropocentric

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and biocentric inputs and outputs to service the upkeep of the natural ecosystem and sustain the livelihoods of its population.

Transferring information at the global scale to the glocal, has the potential to reprogramme these problems as dynamic and responsive solutions: “To create goal-seeking behavior towards sustainability and avoid the development of unsafe slums and unsupportable resource-intensive path dependencies, it becomes essential that all sectors of civil society have a seat at the table to participate in the selection, design, launch, management and perhaps ownership of infrastructure projects.� (Muller, 2013)

The current level of urbanization, economic ad political transformation, geographic homogenisation and evolving complexity of relationships and conditions at the interface in the developing cities of Vietnam, establishes it as useful and contemporary condition for exploration.

Land use conversion, agricultural intensification, interrupted hydrological systems, environmental degradation, pollution, food security, resource extraction, natural disaster and social and economic inequalities are characteristic of the interface.

However Along with these issues the accelerated transitory and dynamic nature of the interface landscape is uniquely placed to offer opportunity and possibility, to reinterpret these problems and establish long-term solutions. For example, using the passive polder system designed by the Yangtze River delta project discussed on page 38, as primarily a soft infrastructure for flood control in Da Nang, but secondly inhabiting the polder for new forms of resilient development, using it as a spatial lobe to reprogramme sprawl, using its topography for agricultural activity effectively creating new communities that re-use flood water.

The disjointed and fragmented nature of the interface in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City has directly influenced the loss of historic locales, creating mono-fucntional, unequal communities and cultures. For example land conversion at the Hanoi interface has created social inequalities, as the once self sustaining agricultural land is now used to accommodate urban activities, leaving a portion of its inhabitants unable to generate

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appropriate incomes. At the micro scale the integration of closed loop systems, which equally rely on both anthropocentric, and biocentric interactions to be functional, can restore the fundamental values of community-based activity. The agriculture and healthy food production pilot study of the Urban agriculture in Casablanca project uses the transfer of skills and knowledge through community organization to generate closed-loops systems for production consequently creating markets, new forms of exchange, small scale closed loop economies and income relieving the pressures of agricultural intensification and land conversion at the interface. To build a relationship with the immediate landscape and balancing inputs and outputs for anthropocentric and biocentric succession is fundamental in the resilience and livelihoods of developing cities.

“Resilient, adaptive infrastructure cannot be built. It grows slowly but extensively, building up relationships in steps and bounds, integrating into surrounding systems, flows and entities; it evolves and shifts till it is essential and invisible” (Carlisle, 2013) This dissertation has presented a number projects which offer precedent for the integration of established small-scale interventions that interweave anthropocentric and biocentric conditions essentially reprogramming development and establishing the interface as the “rurban”, a hybrid landscape that sustains itself whilst simultaneously contributing to the resilient development of its associated rural and urban counterparts.

The level at which these interventions take place across each the interface in Vietnam, offers the ability for adaption and therefore to be influential at a strategic level across the country, thus contributing to resilience at a national scale.

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< https://phys.org/news/2017-01-food-threatened-sea-level.html> [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 13. Air pollution from industrial sites in peri-urban Hanoi [Online image] Available from <http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/environment/182251/pollution-gettingworse-in-vietnam-s-cities.html> [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 14. Deforestation for agriculture in Vietnam's Central peri-urban Highlands [Online image] Available from < https://changeisvietnam.wordpress.com/humanchanges-to-vietnams-environment/ > [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 15. Extensive flooding hit the Da Nang interface in 2013 [Online image] Available from <http://image.vietnamlawmagazine.vn/uploadvietnamlaw/2016/2/5/m10jpg10532457.jp g> [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 16. Land use change in Hanoi 1993-2007 [Online image] Available from<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1747423X.2014.884643?scroll=top& needAccess=true > [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 17. Land cover area change Hanoi 1993-2007 [Online image] Available from<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1747423X.2014.884643?scroll=top& needAccess=true > [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 18. New urban area of Linh Đàm in Hoàng Mai district vs. periurban village of Vạn Phúc, in Hà Đông district. [Online image] Available from< http://masteremergencyarchitecture.com/2017/04/05/how-urban-typologies-shapeinequalities-water-access-in-hanoi/> [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 19. Soldiers collect dead fish floating in the polluted West Lake in Hanoi [Online image] Available from <http://tvtsonline.com.au/en/news/vietnam-news/vietnam-court-rejects-fishermenlawsuits-taiwans-formosa/ > [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 20. Soldiers collect dead fish floating in the polluted West Lake in Hanoi [Online image] Available from <http://tvtsonline.com.au/en/news/vietnam-news/vietnam-court-rejects-fishermenlawsuits-taiwans-formosa/ > [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 21. Distribution of low elevation regions in Vietnam vulnerable to flooding events [Online image] Available from < http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2006/story05-12-06b.php.html> [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 22. Location of hydroelectric reservoirs upstream of Da Nang city [Online image] Available from <http://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/dam-04162013190004.html> [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 23. Hydrological inundation in the Hoa Vang Province, Da Nang [Online image] Available from < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-09/floods-in-da-nang/3656168 >[Accessed 15 August 2017]

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Figure 24. Extract from Vietnam News 6 April 2016. [Online image] Available from < http://www.vitensevidesinternational.com/workshop-about-resilience-of-water-supplyho-chi-minh-city/ > [Accessed 15 August 2017] Figure 25. Polluted watercourse in an informal settlement at the HCMC interface [Online image] Available from < http://icem.com.au/portfolio-items/national-industrialpollution-sources-survey/ > [Accessed 19 August 2017] Figure 26. Transformation of cropland to built up land 1990-2012. [Online image] Available from < https://www.researchgate.net/figure/261183983_fig1_Fig-1-Thegreater-Ho-Chi-Minh-City-area-located-in-southern-Vietnam-A-We-de-fi-ne> [Accessed 19 August 2017] Figure 27. The proportion of households owning motorcycles 1993-2008 [Online image] Available from <https://soc3apcgroup4.wordpress.com/2016/05/> [Accessed 19 August 2017] Figure 28. Trend of MSW generation in Ho Chi Minh City from 1992-2010 [Online image] Available from < https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305892290_Municipal_Solid_Waste_Manage ment_in_Ho_Chi_Minh_City_Viet_Nam_Current_Practices_and_Future_Recommenda tion> [Accessed 19 August 2017] Figure 29. Informal MSW dumping at the HCMC interface [Online image] Available from < http://giaoduc.net.vn/Ban-doc/Rac-thai-ngap-duong-lien-thon-o-huyen-ven-dopost133772.gd > [Accessed 19 August 2017] Figure 30. East Kolkatta Wetlands, closed loop system [Online image] Available from < https://scenariojournal.com/article/productive-filtration-living-system-infrastructure-incalcutta/ > [Accessed 19 August 2017] Figure 31. Distribution of Urban Agriculture solutions by the UAC project [Online image] Available from <http://rmitallchange.weebly.com/urban-agriculture-casablanca.html > [Accessed 19 August 2017] Figure 32. New landscape conditions of the YRDP [Online image] Available from < https://scenariojournal.com/article/yangtze-river-delta-project/> [Accessed 19 August 2017] Figure 33. Perimeter city 238 future condition [Online image] Available from < https://scenariojournal.com/strategy/perimeter-city-238/ > [Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 34. Perimeter city 238, 11 new linear cities [Online image] Available from < https://scenariojournal.com/strategy/perimeter-city-238/ > [Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 35. Wastewater production informing scales of urban development [Online image] Available from < https://scenariojournal.com/article/aqueous-ecologies/ >[Accessed 24 August 2017]

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Figure 36. Exploded axon of the NHA Floating Village Project Bangkok [Online image] Available from < http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/nha-floating-village-bangkokthailand-ssoca/#.WZ57dNPyvox >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 37. Amphibious Container House by Richard Moreta [Online image] Available from < http://inhabitat.com/floating-container-houses-proposed-for-pakistanflood/amphibious-container-5/ >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 38. Makako Floating School by KunlĂŠ Adeyemi [Online image] Available from < http://www.nleworks.com/case/makoko-floating-school/ >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 39. Stuttgart Green infrastructure [Online image] Available from < http://climateadapt.eea.europa.eu/metadata/case-studies/stuttgart-combating-the-heat-island-effectand-poor-air-quality-with-green-ventilation-corridors >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 40. Stuttgart Climate Atlas [Online image] Available from < http://climateadapt.eea.europa.eu/metadata/case-studies/stuttgart-combating-the-heat-island-effectand-poor-air-quality-with-green-ventilation-corridors >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 41. Connected green infrastructure in Stuttgart, Germany [Online image] Available from < http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/metadata/case-studies/stuttgartcombating-the-heat-island-effect-and-poor-air-quality-with-green-ventilation-corridors >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 42. Interweaving green/grey infrastructure in Stuttgart, Germany [Online image] Available from < http://climate adapt.eea.europa.eu/metadata/case-studies/stuttgart-combating-the-heat-island-effectand-poor-air-quality-with-green-ventilation-corridors >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 43. Integrated fishponds of the East Kolkatta Wetlands [Online image] Available from < https://scenariojournal.com/article/productive-filtration/ >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 44. Transformed wasteland of Freshkills Park, New York [Online image] Available from < http://www.archdaily.com/339133/landfill-reclamation-fresh-kills-parkdevelops-as-a-natural-coastal-buffer-and-parkland-for-staten-island >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 45. Da Phuoc Landfill, Ho Chi Minh City [Online image] <http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/environment/162847/giant-landfill-in-saigon-causingpollution.html >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 46. Ariel Sharon Landfill Park, Tel Aviv, Israel [Online image] < http://www.latzundpartner.de/en/projekte/postindustrielle-landschaften/hiriya-tel-aviv-il/ >[Accessed 24 August 2017] Figure 47. Using excess waste for an art installation/tourist attraction at the Ariel Sharon Park [Online image] <http://www.latzundpartner.de/en/projekte/postindustriellelandschaften/hiriya-tel-aviv-il/ >[Accessed 24 August 2017]

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Appendix 1

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1.1 The East Kolkata Wetlands, Calcutta, India Resilient, adaptive infrastructure cannot be built. It grows slowly but extensively, building up relationships in steps and bounds, integrating into surrounding systems, flows and entities; it evolves and shifts till it is essential and invisible. With urban populations growing worldwide, particularly in the developing world, there is an increased interest in green infrastructure and productive landscapes capable of operating at an urban scale, potentially growing in scale and capacity in step with the populations they aim to support. While the emotional lure of turning wholesale to â&#x20AC;&#x153;natural systemsâ&#x20AC;? to meet our infrastructural needs is incredibly appealing, and the ease of placing landscape features in renderings and design imagery, there are significant challenges involved in employing green infrastructure at a scale that meets present and fuure needs. This paper presents the case study of a remarkable example of living systems infrastructure, the East Calcutta Wetland, a high-performance, engineered and managed ecological system that has developed over a century to treat urban waste, produce saleable fish and vegetables, create employment and support a local population and economy.

The value and complexity of the wetland cannot be captured by photographs or simple narrative prose. In order to learn from this example, as designers, engineers or policymakers, it may be necessary adopt a new lens for approaching infrastructural systems that allows designers to move beyond mere outward appearance and form of infrastructural objects, to approach complex systems through an understanding of their essential behavior and the relationships upon which performance is achieved.

Figure 1 East Calcutta Wetland, an example of living systems infrastructure tightly bound to urban fabric and performance. Image from Google Earth

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Living Systems Infrastructure and Urban Ecology Living systems infrastructure utilizes landscape systems to perform ecosystem services (treating stormwater, increasing air quality, treating or processing waste, sequestering carbon, producing energy and nutrients), taking advantage of synergistic relationships between system components and functions [1]. In the urban environment, the performance requirements and constraints placed on infrastructure can rarely be met with truly natural, or unmediated systems. Living systems infrastructure presents a model of thinking and designing hybrid, high performance systems which use an ecosystem ecology perspective to construct and manage environments.

In order for living systems infrastructure to be a viable alternative or supplement to traditional modes of fixed, “grey” infrastructure, there must be a clear, and robust method for assessing the performance of these systems. As much as we may wish it otherwise, the challenge of measurement may very well be the largest impediment to utilizing living systems or green infrastructure at a meaningful scale. It will likely always be easier to predict the future performance of a mechanical system than a biological system. It is easier to accurately predict the flow rate of a culvert than a river; it is easier to assure the sewage treatment capacity of an activated sludge plant than a constructed wetland. Our ability to understand these systems, our ability to describe them and draw them, is crucial to our ability to see them as meaningful strategies and within the realm of design possibilities.

Bringing environmental engineering and environmental management to urban landscapes in a large scale and distributed manner is not just a question of assuring design quality and performance, it also causes us to reconsider the idea of the city, the functioning of its essential building blocks and the relationships of urban components – be they constructed or natural, social, economic or environmental.

Urban Ecology; Unpacking the City Living systems infrastructures are not merely “soft” or “resilient” machines as popularly hypothesized in architectural circles [2,3,4]. Rather, they are better described as engineered ecosystems. Ecosystems ecology is a useful method for studying the urban environment and for managing resources as it calls attention to the relationships which link biotic systems and the physical systems on which they depend [5].

Infrastructural systems of a variety of forms and constructions can be described through the material and energy flows that are essential to their function. This framework allows us to compare both “constructed” and “natural” systems – breaking each down into their constituent parts and their relational logic in order to understand their performance or layered functions be they economic, environmental or social [6].

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Figure 2 Treatment wetland, Image by South Asian Forum for the Environment (SAFE) [left] Sewage treatment plant. Image by ABCTechnolab [right] For the most part, recent green infrastructure projects in American cities have focused primarily on stormwater management [7]. However, living systems are capable of performing a much wider range of ecosystem services currently covered by pieces of civil and environmental engineering. Sewage treatment is an interesting example of one such service, as it is a process that is for the most part, hidden from sight.

Conventional sewage treatment plants are so ubiquitous in the United States that we take this expensive, but essential service for granted. However, even the most highly engineered sewage treatment plant utilizes a combination of biological, chemical and mechanical processes.

Architecturally, we might be compelled to describe wastewater treatment as an assemblage of infrastructural objects: holding tanks, settlers, skimmers, bioreactors, etc. An ecologist, by contrast, might approach the task of describing conventional wastewater treatment by focusing on the flows of energy and materials across the system, describing inputs, ecosystem processes and the resulting outputs. While a plan or section may be best suited for describing the placement of objects in a landscape, a process diagram can capture relationships and actions over time. In the diagram below, we see the stages of wastewater treatment described through their inputs (sewage, water, air, electricity, ultraviolet light, chemicals), the processes undergone (screening, skimming, settling, bioprocessing) and outputs (grit, sand, biosolids, oils, sludge, smell, clean water).

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Figure 3 Conventional sewage treatment as a system of processes and components.

Image by Stephanie Carlisle

Conventional sewage treatment plants already integrate biological processes in a controlled environment. A treatment wetland also does so while allowing the landscape to perform a variety of additional services unimaginable in a wastewater treatment plant. Rather than seeing these systems in clear opposition, understanding the relationships between “green” and “grey” infrastructure is essential for proposing viable alternatives that can credibly take on the roles currently held by conventional infrastructural systems.

The East Calcutta Wetland In Calcutta, West Bengal, a series of canals collects the city’s sewage and channels it into one of the largest and most productive aquaculture systems in the world – producing nearly 100 million pounds of saleable fish per day, fertilizing thousands of hectares of farmland and creating as many as 40,000 jobs [8,9]. Since the East Calcutta Wetland remains the only sewage treatment option for the metropolis, any sewage that remains uncollected eventually finds its way into the already polluted Hooghly River and eventually into the Bay of Bengal. The scale of the ECW in terms of land mass and urban impact is massive – the wetland is composed of over 150 fisheries which cover 3,000 hectares of land (7,500 acres), process 550,000 cubic

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meters (145 million gallons) of raw sewage and storm water every day, and produce roughly sixteen percent of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fish sales [10]. In doing so, the ECW is more than just a wastewater treatment plant or a treatment wetland; it provides for the four critical needs of developing countries: food, sanitation, water and livelihood.

Figure 4 Landsat imagery of Calcutta metropolitan area with the ECW called out in the southeastern area of the city.

In a region where building and maintaining conventional waste water treatment plants has proved untenable from a financial and political standpoint, [11] the wetland has emerged as a robust piece of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infrastructure since its initial construction over a hundred years ago. In addition, the wetland provides a range of non-monetized ecosystem services including control of water and air pollution, groundwater recharge and flood control, preservation of biodiversity and habitat, and improved living standards of local residents.

However, despite its benefits, the wetland and the community that manages it have been consistently under appreciated and remain under continuous threat of encroachment from development [12]. Additionally, due to a deficiency of city planning and infrastructure management, the majority of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population remains underserved, lacking access to adequate sanitation and creating a state of acute public and environmental distress. Since the 1970s, researchers have studied the ECW, each addressing the specific concerns of water quality, social justice and labor, ecosystem health and functioning, regional fish markets and land tenure law [13]. Few of these papers referenced each other and none took a perspective holistic enough to describe

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the urbanistic functioning of the system or project its future prospects. Several new wetlands have been created as engineering experiments, and while there have been some successes, none of which have been able to meet or exceed the performance of the East Calcutta Wetland.

Growing Infrastructures The ECW is an important case study, not only for its present conditions, but also for the linkages between its development and the growth of Calcutta. The ECW is an entirely constructed system, sited on land previously occupied by a brackish estuary that was deprived of its water source when the River Bidyadhari lost its flow. The founding of the wetland is hard to pin down precisely, but began shortly after the city abandoned the practice of channeling its sewage uphill towards the Hooghli River and began building canals that brought effluent, stormwater and solid waste eastward toward the Kulti Gong River and the swampy estuary that formed the eastern and southern edge of the city [14, 15]. That same estuary had been the site of local aquaculture practice since the 1850s, drawing water from the Bidyadhari River. Just as the Bidyadhari lost its flow and was declared â&#x20AC;&#x153;deadâ&#x20AC;? by the Irrigation Department of Bengal, local fishermen, faced with the challenge of keeping their aquaculture ponds alive despite the loss of both water and nutrients, recast the waste stream as a valuable feedstock. As soon as the following year, there is evidence that the fishermen in the immediate area had begun siphoning sewage and storm water runoff and using it to fertilize their ponds [16, 17, 18].

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Figure 5 Major hydrological flows showing movement of stormwater and sewage from initial collection across metropolitan Calcutta into the either the Hoogli River or into the East Calcutta Wetlands for treatment. Image by Stephanie Carlisle Use of wastewater continued in an uneven and illicit manner until the 1940s, when the engineers from the Calcutta Corporation completed the Kulti Outfall Scheme, which increased the capacity of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drainage channels, installed pumps, sedimentation tanks and raised the level of sewage heads to support adequate flow to most of the fishponds by gravity [19, 20]. From this point forward, the wetland and the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drainage and waste system were inseparable, each thriving from the byproducts of the other [21, 22].

The city and the wetland have continued to grow into one another to the extent that they can no longer be pulled apart. Not only is the wetland the result of the flow of sewage, stormwater and waste, it also relies upon social and economic exchanges to support its growth. The resulting landscape is a heterogeneous patchwork of managed conditions marked by wet and dry land, sites of production, maintenance, habitation, transportation and cultivation that forms a gradient from the dense urban edge to the agricultural hinterland.

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Figure 6 Flows of energy and material in and out of the East Calcutta Wetland. Image

by Stephanie Carlisle Within the wetlandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ponds, sewage is treated in a series of contained pools with carefully managed conditions and residence time [23]. As nutrient-rich effluent moves through the system, it is progressively cleaned, redirecting nutrients to the growth of algae or to agricultural products grown along the pond edges. Solids are removed, composted and used to fertilize surrounding fields. Algae and other aquatic plant material is used to feed several species of fish who in turn create nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich water which can be used to irrigate adjacent rice paddies [24]. While aquaculture can be described as a biological system, the wetland cannot function without additional inputs of fish seed, electricity, labor and a constant stream of wastewater and stormwater.

There are few completely â&#x20AC;&#x153;closed loop systemsâ&#x20AC;? in the urban environment. While living systems infrastructure may be efficiently designed and work to minimize waste through connected nutrient and energy flows, it often relies on inputs from the outside environment and in turn affects its surroundings. The East Calcutta is a leaky model.

Aside from producing clean water that can be released into the river downstream, the wetland also sends produce and fish to market, income to local communities [25], visual respite to surrounding areas, and small amounts of methane into the

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atmosphere. These variables are no less vital to the wetlandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s function than the steady flow of sewage.

Figure 7 Facultative [left] and Maturation ponds [right] share responsibility for converting sewage into nutrients and raising fish. Images by South Asian Forum for the Environment (SAFE) Testing Dynamic Equilibrium This narrative approach to explaining the evolution of the ECW is useful for locating the system in a historic and spatial context. However, we understand that the ECW is a complex, dynamic system, and efforts to freeze and analyze the system in a static state obscure the wetlandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s continuous fluctuations and balancing mechanisms. In order to make use of this case study and establish transferable design potential of the system, it is important to break out of the view of the ECW as a fixed entity. In order to argue for the ECW as a type of living systems infrastructure that can be managed or replicated, it is essential to develop a detailed understanding of how the system functions, how it has changed over time in response to nearly a century of urban transformation, and how it will weather future shocks and stress.

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Figure 7 Modeled variables driving system behavior. Diagram by Stephanie Carlisle and Thomas Chase In living systems, nested feedback loops, time delays and non-linear relationships between seemingly disconnected system elements can make it difficult to predict behavioral change. System dynamics modeling is an approach to understanding the behavior of complex systems through the progressive building up of relationships between variables and entities of the larger complex whole. Since the East Calcutta Wetland is a system that must remain at balance in a state far from equilibrium, policies seeking to increase the efficiency of the total system must take into account sensitive dynamics or risk driving the system into collapse. In other cases, the system is resilient enough to self-correct. For example, if sewage collection is dramatically increased across the city without also increasing the capacity of wetland, that excess sewage will not be drawn into the wetland and will still end up in the river.

Another more complex series of causalities contains both balancing and reinforcing feedback loops. For example, the variables of labor, profit, treatment capacity and real estate are woven together so that as the number of fish in the ponds increases, we see an increase in profit at the market which in turn produces an increase in capital available for paying laborers, which increases the number of employees. Since employees spend much of their time stirring the treatment ponds in order to increase

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oxygenation, this labor leads to an increase in pond efficiency which further increases yield. However, as the treatment rate of the system increases, less money may be available for land acquisition subsidies from the government. If land subsidies decrease, new wetland area may decrease, leading to a slowing of the rate of increase in the fish yield.

Figure 8 Development pressure and labor dynamics are inseparable from the functioning of the ECW as an infrastructural system. Video stills from “East Kolkata Wetlands: Bheri Owner’s Perspective,” a documentary created by students at Jadavpur University, directed by Souvik Lal Chakraborty & Malancha Dasgupta

By identifying such interconnected, causal variables (Figure 7), and building them into a series of dynamic systems models, it is possible to simulate the functioning of the aquaculture system and explore the dynamic relationships and behaviors of key variables, allowing us to better understand the nested biological, social and development forces driving the performance of the ECW. Shown below is the structure of one of the final models exploring the effects of government subsidies seeking increase the systems capacity in light of Calcutta’s rapidly growing population.

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Figure 9 East Calcutta Wetland Model: linked biological, social and development variables, modeled in Vensim. Model by Stephanie Carlisle and Thomas Chase This model looks at variables and dynamics associated with the basic functioning of the wetland (the conversion of sewage to fish) and seeks to better understand the interconnection between pond efficiency, labor and urban context. The model sets a goal of increasing the amount of sewage that is collected in the city while creating increased, stable employment for ECW residents and decreasing the total amount of untreated sewage entering the river [26]. The model includes three main policy variables: labor subsidies, land acquisition subsidies and canal construction subsidies [21].

Our model runs indicate that increasing the amount of sewage collected in the city, and preventing it from directly entering the river is a positive move so long as that sewage can be treated by the wetland. The coupling of canal construction with wetland subsidies to increase water treatment capacity is a necessary action to meet that goal.

We also see from the policy scenarios that labor subsidies may not play a significant role in increasing total fish harvest. However, through staggered harvesting and a restructuring of labor throughout the wetland, a phase shift can be achieved that creates the possibility for full-time employment, rather than relying on temporary contracts tied to infrequent harvests. While this adjustment would not increase production or total profit, it would have a significant effect on the security and quality of life for ECW residents.

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Figure 10 Model runs showing typical harvest cycles [upper right] and seasonal employment patterns [upper left], used to establish reference flows and validate model structure. At bottom, model runs showing results of policy scenarios in which seasonal employment is transformed into steady, full time employment [bottom left] and fish total fish harvest is increased slightly [bottom right] Model by Stephanie Carlisle and Thomas Chase

While it is impossible to capture every facet of a complex system, a systems model can allow the designer to test out her understanding of a system by simulating behavior, building up relationships and key variables using known data until the model progressively comes into focus through an iterative design process. Once the model is robust enough to simulate previous measured behavior and to explain expected performance such as known biological or market cycles, it may be used to simulate and test future scenarios.

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Figure 11 Encroachment by development. Video still from “East Kolkata Wetlands: Ecologist’s Perspective,” a documentary created by students at Jadavpur University, directed by Mukulika Dattagupta & Tulika Bhattacharya

Infrastructural urbanism maintains that the ability for cities to grow into vibrant, healthy and beautiful spaces over time rests principally on the underlying mechanisms that drive urban form – be they technical, institutional or environmental. This stance represents a shift from an object-based to a systems-based design approach, which sees the city as a structure for possibilities rather than a fixed architectural image.

Living systems infrastructure has the potential to serve the needs of many while providing a portfolio of options that, through their flexibility, pave the way for sustainable cities. Rapidly deployed, low-tech sanitation and water management systems in peri-urban areas are just one such example of adaptable infrastructure. As designers, we should extend our field of view to include not only the material manifestations of infrastructure, but also the underlying networks of energy, material, capital, social ties, and influence that collectively steer the development trajectories of cities.

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References [1] Robert Costanza, Ralph d’Arge, Rudolf De Groot, Stephen Farber, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg et al. “The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital.” Nature 387, no. 6630 (1997): 253-260.

[2] Neeraj Bhatia and Lola Sheppard ed. Bracket “Goes Soft.” (Barcelona, Actar, 2012).

[3] Nicholas Nagroponte, Soft Architecture Machines (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1975).

[4] Sanford Kwinter, “Soft Systems,” in Culture Lab, ed. Brian Boigon (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993).

[5] F. Stuart Chapin, Pamela Matson and Harold Mooney, Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystems Ecology (New York: Springer, 2002).

[6] Stewart Pickett et al., “Urban Ecological Systems: Scientific foundations and a decade of progress,” Journal of Environmental Management 92 (2011): 331 – 362.

[7] Some outlying green infrastructure programs in the US have begun to address longer-term processes such as carbon sequestration or habitat creation.

[8] Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, “Waste Water Utilization in East Calcutta Wetlands From Local Practice to Sustainable Option,” eSS Occasional Papers. 1(1) (2008): 36-56.

[9] B. B. Jana, “Sewage-fed aquaculture: The Calcutta model.” Ecological Engineering 11 (1998): 73-85.

[10]Dr. Stewart Bunting, N Kundu, and M Mukherjee. “Literature Review: Renewable natural resource-use in livlihoods at the Calcutta peri-urban interface: literature review.”

(Working Paper, University of Stirling, UK Institute of Aquaculture, January 2002).

[11] Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, “Wastewater-fed Aquaculture in the Wetlands of Calcutta – an Overview.” Institute of Wetlands Management and Ecological Design, Proceedings of the International Seminar on Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse for Aquaculture, Calcutta India, 6-9 December 1988.

[12] D Mukhil, “Saving Calcutta’s Wetlands,” Economics and Political Weekly, 28 (49) (1993) 2642 [13] In the early 1980s, the first research and published scholarly work on the ECW was begun by Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, a civil engineer who would make his career studying and advocating for strategic protection of the ECW. We authored the first official report on the ECW, commissioned by the Department of Fisheries in 1983 and he also founded the Institute of Wetlands Management and Ecological Design (IWMED) in Calcutta in 1986. The IWMED remains active and under control of the State of West Bengal and is responsible for mapping, surveying and monitoring the functioning of the wetlands in and around Calcutta.

[14] Hans Dembowski, “Courts, Civil Society and Public Sphere: Environmental Litigation in Calcutta.” Economic and Political Weekly, 34(1/2) (January 2-5, 1999):4956.

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[15] Hans Dembowski, Taking the State to Court (New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

[16] Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, “Waste Water Utilization in East Calcutta Wetlands from Local Practice to Sustainable Option,” eSS Occasional Papers 1(1) (2008): 36-56.

[17] Dhrubajyoti Ghosh and S. Sen, “Ecological history of Calcutta’s wetland conversion,” Environmental Conservation 14(3) (1987):219-226 [18] Hans Dembowski, Taking the State to Court (New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

[19] Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, “Wastewater-fed Aquaculture in the Wetlands of Calcutta – an Overview.” Institute of Wetlands Management and Ecological Design, Proceedings of the International Seminar on Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse for Aquaculture, Calcutta India, 6-9 December 1988.

[20] Goutam Mukherjee, “Wetland Management in the Context of Regional Planning, East Calcutta—A Case Study,”Hydrological Processes and Water Management in Urban Areas (Proceedings of the Duisburg Symposium, April 1988) [21] Hans Dembowski, Taking the State to Court (New Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

[22] Dhrubajyoti Ghosh and S. Sen, “Ecological History of Calcutta’s Wetland Conversion,” Environmental Conservation 14(3): 219-226 [23] Peter Edwards and Banco Mundial, Reuse of Human Wastes in Aquaculture: A Technical Review (Washington DC: UNDP – World Bank, Water and Sanitation Program, 1992):300 [24] B. B. Jana, “Sewage-fed aquaculture: The Calcutta model.” Ecological Engineering 11 (1998): 73-85.

[25] Dr. Stewart Bunting, N. Kundu, and M. Mukherjee. “Literature Review: Renewable natural resource-use in livlihoods at the Calcutta peri-urban interface: literature review.”

(Working Paper, University of Stirling, UK Institute of Aquaculture, January 2002).

[26] Dr. Stewart Bunting, N. Kundu, S. Punch and S. Little, “East Kolkatta Wetlands and Livelihoods: Workshop Proceedings,” (Land-Water Interface Production Systems in Peri-Urban Kolkata DFID-NRSP Project working paper, Stirling, UK: Institute of Aquaculture, 2001) available at http://www.dfid.stir.ac.uk/dfid/nrsp/download/workshop.pdf

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1. 2 Urban Agriculture, Casablanca, Morocco Urban Agriculture Casablanca is a German-Moroccan research project of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the megacity research programme “Research for the Sustainable Development of Megacities of Tomorrow, Focus: Energy- and climate-efficient structures in urban growth centres”.

The project analyses to what extent Urban Agriculture can make a relevant contribution to climate-optimised and sustainable urban development as an integrative factor in urban growth centres. Urban Agriculture is understood as every form of informal or formal agricultural production within the urban region.

Urban Agriculture in today’s urban growth centres leads to new hybrid and climatesensitive forms between rural and urban space. The mechanisms of land utilisation and land utilisation distribution as influenced by informal developments are key factors affecting these urban-rural linkages.

The Casablanca project Urban Agriculture as an Integrative Factor of ClimateOptimised Urban Development is not an alternative model of the city or a utopia. The project is also not concerned with the design of a completely new city and the landscape surrounding it. Instead, the project addresses the question of how a new green infrastructure can be integrated into an existing and at the same time dynamically expanding city.

Urban agriculture as an integrative factor of urban development is used as an example of thinking about a broader approach to open space systems in the sense of multifunctional urban landscapes that react to the specific challenges of the megacities of tomorrow.

The Casablanca project concerns itself with the question of Urban Agriculture as an integrated factor in climate-optimised urban development and the search for an openspace system that is adapted to the challenges confronting today’s cities.

Approach How can urban agriculture be systematically developed into a new green infrastructure in cities?

The basic approach of the UAC- project is that a viable response to the changed spatial patterns and spatial sprawl in urban growth centers could be the concept of an urban-regional open-space structure based on Urban Agriculture matched by a conscious integration, in terms of urban development planning, of urban-rural linkages in a poly-central city.

The four central questions that were formulated to steer the research in the second stage were: - To what extent can Urban Agriculture play a significant role in adapting to the consequences of climate change, in climate protection, and in energy efficiency, which represent amongst Morocco’s greatest economic and ecological challenges?

- To what extent is Urban Agriculture an innovative strategy for the sustainable land conservation of urban open space?

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- to what extent can Urban Agriculture contribute to the struggle against poverty?

- How can Urban Agriculture be integrated as a vital element of urban development in accordance with local conditions?

Scale Four topic areas were defined for the organisation of the working process that were to be studied in-depth, within each of which subsidiary questions were to be examined.

They are: • urban development • agriculture • climate change • governance and technical support The project, therefore, has a urban scale at level of intervention, but the effect of the agricultural patch are going to influence the regional system of urban planning.

Based on the categorisation of Urban Agriculture, four pilot projects have been identified on the bi-national workshop in February 2007.

Pilot Project 1: Urban Agriculture + Industry The idea of the project is that treated wastewater from industrial sites be either used for neighbouring agricultural or for production purposes within the industrial site (closed water loops).

Figure 1. Urban Agriculture + Industry

Pilot Project 2: Urban Agriculture + Informal Settlement The goal of the pilot project 2 is a dovetailing of agriculture with settlement areas in order to improve the resulting synergies in periurban areas and to steer its development.

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Figure 2. Urban Agriculture + Informal Settlement

Pilot Project 3: Urban Agriculture + Peri-urban Tourism The pilot project in the Oued el Maleh valley is located 20 km north-east of Casablanca. It is characterised by small-scale farming and is a popular destination for city dwellers. the pilot project strives for a symbiosis between the needs and potentials of the city dwellers and the inhabitants of the valley.

Figure 3. Urban Agriculture + Peri-urban tourism

Pilot Project 4: Urban Agriculture + Healthy Food Production The pilot project entitled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Urban Agriculture and Healthy Food Productionâ&#x20AC;? aims at developing a modern organic food production on the site of the agro- ecological pedagogical Farm of Dar Bouazza. The organic products, which would be singled out

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through a local quality label, will enable the creation of direct and fair relations between the producers and the consumers involved in supporting the proximity (within reach) production

Figure 4. Urban Agriculture + healthy food production

Figure 5. Distribution of urban agriculture pilot projects in Casablanca (Weebly, 2017)

Helpful synergies and win-win situations between the city and agriculture regarding food production, wastewater- and flood management, and leisure can be developed.

Agriculture could thus be understood as a constructive urban element.

In order to contribute to sustainable and climate-optimised urban development an open-space system should be as multifunctional as possible. To do so, the Casablanca concept of urban agriculture encompasses a number of different subsidiary concepts.

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Urban agriculture: - should contribute to the supply of urban food, - should provide recreational and leisure opportunities, - should contribute to resource efficiency and urban recycling management, - should contribute to ecosystem services, - should integrate residential space functions - should be beautiful.

How A spatial model for the systematic integration of forms of agricultural use in urban development as a new category for the creation of rural-urban linkages was drawn up at the macro level of the urban region. This model is based on various factors, including analyses of existing settlement and agricultural structures, settlement history, natural spatial elements, and the quality of the soil for agriculture.

In addition, these analyses were superimposed over development plans for the urban region (SDAU, Plan Vert, SOFA). The spatial model distinguishes between nine different categories of multifunctional spatial systems. The categories range from innercity micro areas and districts to expansive areas of intense production on the urban periphery.

Thinking in terms of a future integration and transformation of agriculture in the city, a new green urban infrastructure is being created, which is – contrary to a traditional green infrastructure like parks – inhabited. Here, the perspective of the inquiry is directed towards the transformation of agricultural areas into living space. It implies that some of a megacity’s inhabitants live and work in a rural sphere within the urban area.

The previous rural form of living therefore becomes an integrated factor in urban development, generating “the rurban” as a new urban milieu (with specifi c spatial, functional, economic, and social interconnections) and – perhaps – the “rurbanite” as a new form of living. In this sense, qualifying rural-urban linkages within the urban region will create new forms of coexistence and allow for new synergies, values, living strategies, and spatial structures to emerge over the long term.

Challenges and Opportunities Like many sustainable initiatives the challenge is implementing and funding the unseen and less glamorous aspects of design; to not cut corners in the framework that underpins the long-term success of such ambitious goals.

The opportunity for cities to be more connected to nature and productive through energy harvesting and urban agriculture has wide reaching benefits for the health and well being of both environment and the community.

References Kasper, C. and Rau, A. (2012). Urban Agriculture Casablanca. Resilient Cities 2, [online] pp.139-147. Available at: http://www.bookmetrix.com/detail/chapter/83a7f5665c97-4a4a-8e67-c58e51dcc23e#citations [Accessed 15 Aug. 2017].

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1.3 The Yangtze River Delta Project, Shanghai, China The Yangtze River Delta Project (YRDP), exhibited at the Princeton-Fung Global Forum “The Future of the City” in Shanghai, January 2013, is a low-tech but large-scale climate adaptation and flood management proposal for the Yangtze River Delta. Led by City College of New York landscape architect Catherine Seavitt and Princeton University structural engineer Guy Nordenson, with coastal engineer Ning Lin, chemical engineer Howard Stone, and civil engineer Michael W. Tantala, the YRDP research group developed a strategy of coastal climate adaptation and flood management for Shanghai, China. The research group’s methodology of analysis and design, which develops soft infrastructural strategies responding to sea level rise and storm surge and their effects on unique local conditions, has been applied to a series of studies addressing the adaptation of coastal cities in a changing climate. Other studies undertaken by the research group include projects for the transformation of New York and New Jersey’s Upper Harbor and a land-building sediment diversion proposal for the Mississippi River Delta.

Satellite image of the Yangtze River Delta. [left]; Merged bathymetric / topographic model of the Yangtze River Delta. [right] Images © Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013 As sea levels rise and oceans warm, coastal cities around the world must reconsider their resilience to the increased frequency and intensity of climate events such as storm surge, heavy precipitation, and high winds. In New York City, the destructive landfall force of both Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Irene has provoked a debate among scientists, engineers, policy makers, architects, and landscape architects about how to resiliently adapt dense urban settlements to the force of powerful storms and the continuing risk of rising seas. Coastal infrastructure must be reconsidered; this is

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an ongoing debate in many global cities such as Rotterdam, London, St. Petersburg, and New York. Yet each city has its own geomorphic properties, and each culture has its own civic attitude concerning risk and risk management. In Shanghai, the largest city in the People’s Republic of China, twenty-three million people live at an average of just thirteen feet above sea level, within a historically shifting deltaic landscape of alluvial flows. The Yangtze River Delta Project seeks to reimagine the extensive rigid seawall infrastructure that is nearing completion at the East China Sea. Instead of accepting the contemporary attitude of attempting to exclude water completely, the YRDP embraces the wisdom found in ancient Chinese techniques for floodwater management within a deltaic landscape, finding inspiration in these historic treatises that suggest keeping berms along the canals low, dredging minimally, and designating floodplain zones to accept floodwaters.

Yangtze River Delta oblique aerial view, showing the varied land use and the seawall at the East China Sea, 2008. Photo by Marc Latrémouille

The Long River and the Delta Plain The Yangtze River, known as the Chang Jiang (“Long River”) in Chinese, is the third longest river in the world, with a length of over 3900 miles and an elevational change of over 20,000 feet. Its watershed drains twenty percent of China’s total land area, over 700,000 square miles. Thirty percent of China’s population lives within this watershed, and the river is the country’s commercial spine. The Yangtze also carries a huge amount of sediment—each year, over 600 million tons of mud and silt are discharged at the mouth of this tidally-dominated delta to the East China Sea, muddying the waters for seventy-five miles beyond its conflux with the sea.

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Sediment load at the Yangtze River Delta. Image by NASA This huge volume of Yangtze River sediment also creates land. Until the seventh or eighth century CE, much of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Shanghai was wetland marsh. Geologically part of a slow-growing strand plain, the Yangtze Delta was formed by a series of chenier shell ridges that gradually extended the deltaic plain seaward through the sedimentary deposition of the Yangtze River. It is estimated that delta plain advances toward the sea one mile every seventy years (approximately two kilometers per century) [1]. This occurs through a slow process of ridge sedimentation, or chenier ridge growth, in which

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earthen ridges with embedded shells develop naturally at the delta plain through the deposition of riverine sediment countered by wave action. These ridges are overtopped by landward moving waves, and vegetation gradually begins to stabilize the ridge.

The chenier plain is characterized by this sequence of parallel earthen ridges slowly accreting seaward. This sedimentary growth is clearly revealed through a study of historic maps of the delta, including the detailed British map of territories, topographies, and soundings produced in 1920 by the Whangpoo Conservancy Board.

General Map showing the District Around and the Approaches to Shanghai. Image by Whangpoo Conservancy Board, 1920. Earth Sciences and Map Library, University of California, Berkeley [left]; Coastal sedimentary accretion at the Yangtze River Delta [right] Image Š Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013 Historically, the parallel chenier ridges of the deltaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s terrain were the natural areas of high ground in an otherwise flat landscape, and traces of settlement by humans, as well as the construction of irrigation canals and terraces for rice production and dikes for channeling floodwaters, have been dated to the Neolithic period. Given the fertile alluvial soil, the hot and wet summer climate, and the availability of water due to the shallow water table, agricultural land use is intensive at the Yangtze Delta. The lower Yangtze region has long been considered the grain basket of China, but now the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s productivity is being threatened by saltwater intrusion as sea levels rise, and the alluvial soil is subsiding because of the pumping and extraction of groundwater to support intensive development.

Infrastructure and Risk The low-lying Yangtze River Delta is also home to an enormous array of commercial and transportation infrastructure. The most developed area in China, the Delta includes

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the important industrial centers of Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou, and China’s largest city, Shanghai. The densely populated urban core of Shanghai, situated along the Huangpu River, has twenty-three million inhabitants. The Port of Shanghai is now the world’s busiest container port. Begun as a treaty port in 1842, it has three working zones: a deep water port in Hangzhou Bay, an estuary port at the mouth of the Yangtze, and the historic river port along the Huangpu River in central Shanghai. The Shanghai Pudong International Airport is an important transportation hub for both cargo and passengers and represents another significant and ongoing infrastructural investment at the coast.

The airport, opened in 1999 and expanded in 2008, is currently undergoing a second expansion, which will double the airport’s capacity by 2015.

Despite such investment in critical transportation and commercial infrastructure, the Yangtze Delta region is barely above sea level. Shanghai sits at an average of thirteen feet above the mean tide and is thus particularly vulnerable as the climate warms and sea levels rise. In June 2012, a study of nine international coastal cities built on river deltas determined that Shanghai was the city most vulnerable to flooding when considering physical, social, and economic attributes [2]. There are multiple geomorphic reasons: its geological foundations consist merely of alluvial mud deposited by the Yangtze River over hundreds of thousands of years. It is a lacelike tapestry of water and land, with thousands of linear canals for local irrigation and transportation snaking through the delta territory. In addition to its low elevation, it belongs to a region that has historic, current, and future vulnerability to tropical cyclones, or typhoons [3]. High winds, heavy rains, and storm surges from typhoons often occur along the coast of China during summer and autumn, and serious coastal flooding of the Yangtze River Delta has occurred in 1962, 1963, 1964, 1990, and 1997 [4].

Super Typhoon Winnie, 12 August 1997, satellite image. Image by U.S. Navy [left]; Random selection of the historical tropical cyclone tracks at coastal China, 1945-2007.

Image by Yonekura and Hall, 2011 [right]

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Hard-engineered dikes and seawalls have been built to counter the danger of flooding, but existing infrastructures may become less effective as sea levels rise and climate patterns shift. The Shanghai Bund, along the Huangpu River, has levees now maintained at a height of 6.9 meters, designed for a one-in-1000 year flood risk [5]. A floodgate at the conflux of Suzhou Creek and the Huangpu River, raised and lowered twice daily with the tides and weather, is also designed to withstand a one-in-1000 year tidal surge and to protect the Suzhou district of Shanghai. On August 18, 1997, Typhoon Winnie, designated as a Category 5 “Super Typhoon” when it attained peak winds of 160 miles per hour over the Pacific, brought the highest recorded surge event to the Yangtze Delta region, 5.72 meters (approximately 19 feet), when it made landfall just south of Shanghai. The Huangpu River broke through a dike and inundated over 400 homes with 1.5 meters of water [6]. Winnie’s floodwaters came within 14 centimeters of overtopping the 5.86 meter-high Suzhou Creek floodgate.

The Suzhou Creek floodgate, located at its conflux with the Huangpu River, 2013.Photo by Dorothy Tang Formerly considered adequate protection, reliance on such infrastructures will become a riskier proposition as the probability of storms increases: changing weather patterns have been observed in several recent studies of this region, suggesting increasingly intense tropical storms due to westward shifts in storm tracks and increasing typhoon influence over the past half-century [7].

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Seawall at the East China Sea in Pudong, Shanghai, 2010. Photo by Bo Shui

Recent construction of a new continuous seawall at the East China Sea, much of it built since 2009, is an acknowledgement of the billions of dollars invested in the transportation and industrial infrastructures behind it. Indeed, the region is dependent upon the singular and expensive flood control mechanism of the engineered seawall, despite its potential for catastrophic failure at any point along its length. Principles of resilient design would argue instead for multiple redundant defenses, and look to incorporate systems that can adapt to changing climate conditions rather than becoming ever more stressed and fragile. The Yangtze River Delta Project was initiated as a proposal to move beyond the singular hard-infrastructural strategy of the seawall, by designing additional layers of resilient protection thorough the use of redundant soft-infrastructural systems.

Spontaneous coastal marsh with fishermenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nets just beyond the seawall, 2012. Photo

by Sean Burkholder

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Assessing Flood Risk In order to accurately model the existing flood risk and assess the effects of proposed techniques that would increase resilience to flooding, the Yangtze River Delta Project began by developing a continuous topographic / bathymetric digital model of the region. This continuous numerical model, merging both land and ocean data, is an important tool; traditional oceanic models, based on depth soundings, end at the assumed “line” of the coastal edge, resulting in an artificial binary division between water and land. The continuous numerical model considers the terrain, both above and below the surface of the water, as a continuous topologic surface, a vessel containing the dynamic medium of water.

Bathymetric digital model of the Yangtze River Delta [left]; Topographic digital model of the Yangtze River Delta [right] Images © Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013 For the continuous numerical model, two GIS datasets—a topographic digital model and a bathymetric digital model—were merged to create a seamless depiction of the terrain both above and below the water. When seen in a satellite image, the “coastline” of the Yangtze Delta appears as a distinct line dividing water and land; the merged topographic / bathymetric model, by contrast, reveals the continuity of this terrain, showing the continuous gradient of the terrain’s surface and challenging the singularity of the divisive line at the coastal edge.

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Satellite image of the Yangtze River Delta [left]; Merged bathymetric / topographic model of the Yangtze River Delta [right] Images Š Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013 This merged topographic / bathymetric model provided the surface onto which the statistical models of typhoon storm surge events could be mapped. Using surge heights for 250-year, 500-year, and 1000-year statistical storm models, the merged model reveals that many of the municipal districts around central Shanghai are lowlying areas at high risk of inundation. The Shanghai Edge Atlas, detailing seawall conditions and land use along the coast, was developed to establish coastal elevations on the continuous digital model.

Inundation risk maps of the Yangtze River Delta, showing 250-year, 500-year, and 1000-year flood plains. Images Š Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013

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Shanghai Edge Atlas, selected pages, including edge typologies, key maps, satellite imagery, and inundation risk. Images Š Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013

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The Open Polder In the search for a design strategy for the Yangtze Delta proposal, one that would respond to both the risk of storm surge and provide new techniques for managing floodwaters, the research group was intrigued by the philosophy of Yu the Great (22002100 BCE, founder of the Xia Dynasty), who devised a protective response to the historically devastating floods in China through a moderate, soft infrastructural approach. Rather than building dams and high dikes to impede the flow of water, Yu created a system of irrigation canals that relieved riverine floodwaters into agricultural fields, building low earthen dikes to guide the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flow. Yuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s techniques allowed for the movement of water rather than its static impoundment through damming; these worked with the simple dynamics of a gravity-fed hydrological system to relieve pressure and reduce flooding [8].

The Yangtze River and its extensive flood plain has long been the site of an agricultural society in China which is dependent upon flooding. Low-tech techniques were developed to control the movement of floodwaters, and the strategic use of canal dredging and bunding for the capture of water for irrigation have been harnessed for rice paddy production for thousands of years. Bunding, the process of gathering of soil into low ridges to form the edges of stepped terraces, echoes at a smaller scale the sectional characteristics of the naturally formed chenier ridge. Floodwaters are engaged to irrigate the rice fields, and simple gravity flow within each field allows the irrigation water to descend thorough a series of carefully managed terraces. Canal building through trenching and berming was also employed as part of urban and rural planning technique in recent Chinese political history, a labor-intensive process involving the displacement of earth through the techniques of cut and fill and employing the use of the wheelbarrow [9].

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Chinese rice fields near Beijing, 1920. Image by Deutsches Bundesarchiv, #137004023 The YRDP team examined Yu’s concept of the agricultural field as a flood overflow zone though the conceptual development of a “passive” polder. A polder is essentially an earthen embankment or dike enclosing a low-lying area of land. The Dutch are perhaps best known for their techniques of land reclamation and flood defense through the construction of polders, but the Chinese have also extensively employed poldering as a strategy for protecting agricultural lands within riverine floodplains, particularly along the middle Yangtze River. But the fully enclosed polder demands maintenance and often requires the expenditure of energy through mechanized pumping. An enclosed polder creates an artificial and self-contained hydrological zone; the polder’s only connection to water outside of its contained area is through a sluice or gate system. In the Netherlands, coastal marshes or bays were separated from the surrounding water by dikes, drained with pumps, and planted with reeds to speed drying via transpiration. The resulting dry land generally subsides, creating an area that is thus below the surrounding water level. During rain or storm events, a polder system must be mechanically drained of excess water by pumps to prevent flooding.

The “passive” or “open” polder proposed by the YRDP is conceptually more resilient than the fully enclosed polder; it does not fully encircle a territory and thus maintains a semi-enclosed area as part of the surrounding hydrologic watershed, avoiding issues of continuing subsidence. The open polder functions as a kind of temporary reservoir, designed to hold floodwaters and slowly release them via gravity. Rather than

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attempting to exclude floodwaters, the open polder system intentionally accepts overflow and provides a slow release of water.

In the Yangtze River Delta Project, low figural earthen dikes form these open polders by wrapping agricultural territories adjacent to major linear canals. Several simple physical models were constructed and tested with water to analyze hydrodynamic flow, given variables such as canal depth, angle of canal intersections, and low berm/polder perimeters with gravity outlets flowing toward canals. Conceptually, the open polder allows for the collection as well as the controlled release and outflow of flood waters.

This strategy applies the principles of “controlled flooding”—collect, retain and release—rather than the traditional formula of “flood control,” which attempts to exclude all water.

Open polder water tank study model, clay. Images © Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013

Constructed Berms The Yangtze River Delta Project design focuses on the Shanghai Municipality’s coastal delta districts of Pudong, Fengxian, and Jinshan, wrapping from north to south along the coast, along with the area just west of the mouth of the Huangpu River. To increase the resiliency of the Delta region, the Project deploys a low-tech but large-scale intervention of earthen berms, which serve to reduce damage from storm surge by attenuating wave energy, slowing wave velocity, and temporarily capturing floodwaters, allowing the waters to be absorbed and to recede slowly.

Constructed linear chenier berm ridges, arrayed both on- and off-shore, help to slow surge velocity and dampen wave impact. Highways are raised atop similar linear berms, which act as both surge buffers and elevated evacuation routes. Figural earthen berms, the open polders, wrap agricultural fields, creating two overlapping curved bands across the four coastal districts. Simple cut-and-fill techniques, here interpreted as canal and berm, are used together with the traditional Chinese agricultural irrigation techniques of rice paddy bunding and terracing. The proposed semi-enclosed polders, arrayed in two broad bands, serve to capture water that overtops the coastal seawall and the three major canals connecting the Huangpu River to the East China Sea.

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Rather than mechanically pumping out water as in the traditional Dutch polder method, waters are absorbed and released via gravity flow through the existing and enhanced canal network.

Yangtze River Delta Project site model.

Image Š Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013. Photo by Jock Pottle The â&#x20AC;&#x153;open poldersâ&#x20AC;? and chenier ridges are conceived as a decentralized, redundant, and locally managed system that is embedded in both the geological history and the agricultural landscape of the delta, and are intended to decrease the vulnerability of Shanghai to the risks of sea level rise and increased typhoon activity. The flood waters of storm surge from typhoons are slowed, captured, retained, re-absorbed, and allowed to retreat in a systematically controlled manner.

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Yangtze River Delta Project site model, detail of highways (in yellow) and open polders.

Images Š Yangtze River Delta Project, 2013. Photos by Jock Pottle

Adaptive Landscapes The Yangtze River Delta Project, as a collaborative examination of flood risk in the rapidly-developing landscape of metropolitan Shanghai, attempts to broaden the role of infrastructural thinking at the estuarine scale. Land use and urban growth must address the natural systems of earth and atmospheric sciences as well as the economic potential of real estate and capital. Nature is part of the urban realm.

Coastal urban estuaries, whether the Hudson River estuary, the Mississippi River Delta, or the Yangtze River Delta, are dynamic sites. These sedimentary terrains, affected by atmospheric and hydrologic systems as well as shifts provoked by climate change, must be reconsidered at the infrastructural scale in ways that acknowledge both urban settlement, agrarian use, and natural forces. Our deployment of a strategic process of design conceptually reframes the estuarine configuration to create a more resilient and adaptive landscape, a system that dynamically responds to the risks of sea level rise and the increased vulnerability of the coastal environment.

The consideration of land as a continuous topological surface extending above and below the water is a fundamental premise of our research and design proposals. This land surface, wet or dry, may be reconfigured to attenuate the wave energy of moving waters and capture, retain, and release floodwaters. In our work on the Upper Bay of New York and New Jersey, this is achieved through a field of archipelago islands and by the delineation of protective zones through the use of linear reefs. Land can also serve to channel water, transforming its speed and velocity and allowing for the dynamic movement and deposition of sediment for land building, as we examined in our proposal for additional diversions within the Mississippi River Delta. Or, land may be reconfigured through a simple cut-and-fill process to create a chenier-like field of

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linear berms and figural polders to retain and reabsorb floodwaters, as is proposed in our Yangtze River Delta Project.

The adaptive landscape operates systemically in varied atmospheric, tidal, and storm conditions. We employ “soft” infrastructural techniques, which we define as multiple and iterative strategies that buffer, absorb, or temporarily retain flooding. Our design proposals for adaptive landscapes strive to enhance the quality of urban life and the resilient health of the estuarine environment, while protecting against the risk of flooding and acknowledging the dynamics of sea level rise.

References [1] Lyman P. Van Slyke, Yangtze: Nature, History, and the River, (New York: AddisonWesley Publishing Co., 1988), 23.

[2] Stefania Balica et al, “A flood vulnerability index for coastal cities and its use in assessing climate change impacts,” in Natural Hazards 64 (2012): 73-105.

[3] Emmi Yonekura and Timothy M. Hall, “A Statistical Model of Tropical Cyclone Tracks in the Western North Pacific with ENSO-Dependent Cyclogenesis,” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 50 (2011). Note that both typhoon and hurricane are regionally-specific names for tropical cyclones.

[4] Tong Jiang, Analysis of Flood Hazards in the Yangtze River Valley and Strategies for Sustainable Flood Risk Management, (Aachen, Germany: Shaker Verlag, 2000), 17.

[5] Elaine Kurtenbach, “Rising Seas Threaten Shanghai, other major cities,” U.S. News and World Report, October 18, 2009, http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/10/18/rising-seas-threatenshanghai-other-major-cities.

[6] Associated Press, “Typhoon Winnie Slams China as Taiwan Cleans Up,” Sun Journal, August 21,1997, 17C, retrieved http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zlIpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MmsFAAAAIBA J&dq=typhoon%20winnie%20taiwan&pg=3470%2C3148285.

[7] Congbin Fu et al., eds., Regional Climate Studies of China, (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2008).

[8] See Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty and Qin Dynasty, translated by Burton Watson, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

[9] Kris De Decker, “How to downsize a transport network: the Chinese wheelbarrow,” Low-Tech Magazine,accessed December 29, 2011, http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html.

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1.4 Perimeter City 238, Lincoln, Nebraska

Project: Perimeter City 238 Location: Lincoln, NE Designer: Andrew Ferentinos Year: 2012 Program: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Faculty Advisors: Alan Berger, Alexander D’Hooghe Project Description: Even though the U.S. metropolitan area population is an expanding suburbia, most research on cities is focused on high density, compact urban areas. Metropolitan horizontal scale has largely been neglected even though it is likely to remain the model for many years to come. Lincoln, Nebraska is taken as a model to research innovative models of suburbanization that can be applied to other U.S. cities.

The issues Lincoln face are common to many cities. Majority of inhabitants share the suburban desire to have both city and country at their fingertips. Unfortunately, under the status quo of concentric-ringed expansion, the peri-urban edge—the interface where countryside and city meet—is constantly unstable and fleeting. It is only a matter of time until the edge is consumed by expansion, turning it into a massively thick, low value middle ground, neither city nor country. Agricultural land is constantly consumed, pushing food sources further from their demand.

PERIMETER CITY 238 provides an alternative. It accommodates a doubling population—an increase of 250,000 people by 2050—into a plan that achieves three main goals. It stabilizes, protects, and maximizes the highly sought after peri-urban edge. It distributes a network of relatively higher density urban nodes easily accessible

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to the low/mid density peri-urban edge. It minimizes and eliminates low value, unwanted middle ground.

This plan is achieved by using infrastructure to focus growth into eleven new linear cities, or Fingers, that link Lincoln’s satellite towns to the existing city. The result is a new asterisk shaped city that maximizes perimeter and radically increases contact between city and agricultural land from 107 to 228 linear miles. This plan maintains Lincoln’s scale and character as a mid/low-density city, and ensures the continued presence of the agriculture, industry, and prairie landscapes that define its origins and productive future.

Finger-Structure: The particulars of local topography serve as an organizing principle for the plan. Each of the Fingers, roughly 7 miles long by 1.5 miles wide, contain a population of roughly 25,000. These linear footprints are aligned roughly along ridgelines, leaving lowlands and floodplains to the areas in-between serving as agricultural and prairie habitat.

Transportation: A new continuous parkway, the Cornbelt, traces the outer edges of all eleven Fingers, clearly defining the boundary between city and countryside.

An Interior Belt marks the threshold between Lincoln’s existing urban fabric and the new finger extensions. Another highway, the Ring Road, runs perpendicularly across the center of each finger and provides a cross connection between each Finger.

Nodes: Three types of architectural and landscape interventions organize the structure of the Fingers. First, within each Finger, a centrally located Civic Node acts as a growth magnet and center of economics, commerce, entertainment, culture, and civic space. Second, Water reservoirs and constructed wetlands are located at the junctions between each Finger. This helps block suburban expansion into farmland. It will comprise a significant element of the future city’s water infrastructure, improving regional water quality as well as providing wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities. Third, land that is excavated in the process is used as fill to raise the elevations of the terminal ends of each Finger. Upon these terminal mounds, ethanol plants and Waste-to-energy facilities are located.

Open Space: Each linear city will have a network of linked open spaces and natural areas that preserve features such as floodplains and forest while connecting existing parklands. A Constructed Central Park culminates at each finger’s Civic Node.

Ringed with higher-density housing, this park accommodates a variety of public activities. The large areas of land lying beyond each finger will be preserved as a mix of productive farmland and prairie, maintained as a publicly accessible landscape preserve.

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Ferentinos, A., Bunza, M. and Thelander, M. (2012). Perimeter City 238. Scenario Journal. [online] Available at: https://scenariojournal.com/strategy/perimeter-city-238/ [Accessed 18 Aug. 2017].

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1.5 Aqueous Ecologies: Parametric Aquaculutre and Urbanism, New York, U.S.

Project: Aqueous Ecologies Location: Willets Point, NY Designer: Michael Ezban Year: 2013 Program: Harvard University Graduate School of Design Faculty Advisor: Chris Reed Project Description: ‘Aqueous Ecologies’ imagines a future for Willets Point, a derelict peninsula in Queens, NY, in which new ecologies, economies, and cultural identities of the city are intertwined with landscape-based solutions for adaptive, polyfunctional, and publicly accessible wastewater management and treatment. Aquaculture becomes a foundation for an ecological urbanism.

Rather than starting with a traditional masterplan, this project proposes a productive ecology of multi-trophic aquaculture (closed-loop fish farming) as a catalyst for urban development. A 50-year process for cultivating aquaculture and urbanism at Willets Point increases wildlife biodiversity and creates cultural and economic synergies over time, at both local and regional scales. Over time, synergistic relationships between aquaculture and urbanism mature, establishing the urban core as a greywater and stormwater supply for a burgeoning aquaculture industry.

At areas of high urban density, waters flow through hard- and soft-bottom channels, from sidewalk swales to plaza basins. The alternating conditions of saturation and desiccation at these urban spaces foster a dynamic range of recreational and commercial activity. At the littoral zone of Willets Point, the character of the landscape is quite different. Biotic succession and daily tide dynamics are evident in the expansive salt marshes, while kelp cultivation groins — thriving on aquaculture wastewater — extend into Flushing Bay, becoming armatures for sediment accumulation and spontaneous vegetation. The kelp can either be exported into

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culinary and medicinal economies, or remain within the aquaculture system as processed fish meal.

Public access throughout the littoral zone, via boardwalks that convey wastewater for treatment, allows for immersive cultural experiences and an opportunity to experience the dynamism of succession and daily tide dynamics. Processes of sediment deposition and accumulation against these boardwalks lead to the emergence of publicly accessible habitat islands. During storm events, public activities shift to elevated civic spaces that float above temporarily flooded civic spaces. The raised infrastructure connects to existing elevated transit lines and roof gardens and allows aquaculture and wastewater filtration to intertwine at multiple levels within the fabric of the city.

References Ezban, M. (2013). Aqueous Ecologies: Parametric Aquaculture and Urbanism. Scenario Journal, [online] Rethinking Infrastructure. Available at: https://scenariojournal.com/article/aqueous-ecologies/ [Accessed 21 Aug. 2017].

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1.6 NHA Floating Village Project, Bangkok, Thailand

One of the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main characteristics of this project is its strong social component and purpose. The projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prime goal is to help bring awareness of the relevance of working with nature when dealing with flood conditions in Thailand. With this project, this has been achieved through the design of a complete floating village.

One of the main design elements will be the Flood Interpretative Center. This floating structure will be hosting permanent exhibitions, teaching about ecology and learning about how to live with water. The rest of the structures will have different uses, such as commercial, housing, and public park areas.

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The adjacent land, encircling the water, plays a fundamental role, transforming the entire site into a small, self sustained, demonstration living eco-system. All plants used on the project will be native: shrubs, trees and wetland vegetation.

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Plants have a fundamental role in the project. On one hand, it will be a great opportunity to practically demonstrate the applications of plants in the improvement of water quality, through a combination of horticultural and bioengineering techniques. The other important role of plants on this project is through applied sustainable urban design. We will use native species of trees throughout the project perimeter to provide shade for pedestrians and cyclists. In a wider sense, this project will be an opportunity to show how all these have an effect in the landscape ecology.

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Learning about the role and value of native ecological systems and plants is part of the process of influencing society, a step that helps bringing a much needed awareness about ecology and nature in general.

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Community gardens will be planted along the proposed pedestrian and bicycle network. These community gardens will play an important role helping the community. A future community garden center will serve as the heart for all neighborhood issues related to urban sustainable living. At the same time, the center will promote and help neighbors, elders and school children to develop their gardening abilities and to promote and develop recycling, composting and a wide range of sustainability related issues.

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The process of societal transformation will come through only after years of education and understanding. This projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s primary aims are to contribute to this process of social transformation in Thailand.

The design phase for the project has been approved by the client, the NHA (National Housing Authority of Thailand). The complete design package is currently under way, with construction slated for 2016.

References World Landscape Architecture. (2017). NHA Floating Village | Bangkok Thailand | SSOCA -. [online] Available at: http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/nha-floating-villagebangkok-thailand-ssoca/#.WZiHFtPyvox [Accessed 19 Aug. 2017].

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1.7 Green Infrastructure, Stuttgart, Germany

Challenges The city's location has a significant influence on its local climate including implications for solar radiation, air temperature, humidity, precipitation and wind. Stuttgart sits in the wide Neckar basin formed by two river valleys, shielded by steep hill slopes. Stuttgart's centre is located at about 240m above sea level, while the surrounding hills rise to 500m a.s.l.

Stuttgart has a mild, temperate climate with warm summers. Wind speeds throughout the city are generally low, which along with the urban heat island effect, contributes to poor air quality. The future climate projections for 2071-2100 suggest a 2ÂşC increase of mean annual temperature in Stuttgart. The projections for heat waves (T>30°C) suggest that the number of days with heat stress (when peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thermoregulation is impaired) will increase significantly. By 2100, 57% of the Greater Stuttgart region could have more than 30 days with heat stress (in the low lying areas over 60 days).

Therefore, a significantly higher percentage of people are likely to be exposed to the risks associated with heat waves than at present.

Objectives The primary objective for the region of Stuttgart is to facilitate air exchange in the city, thereby enhancing the potential for cool air flow from the hills towards the urban areas on the valley floor.

Solutions The Climate Atlas for the region of Stuttgart was published in 2008, based on the previous work in this area carried out by the City of Stuttgart since the 1980s and the in-house urban climatology department (in existence in the City of Stuttgart since 1938). The Climate Atlas provides standardised climatic assessments for the 179

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towns and municipalities in the Stuttgart region. The Atlas comprises maps which show regional wind patterns, flows of cold air, air pollution concentrations, and other relevant information required to inform planners on what to do for urban climatic optimization that could inform new projects and retrofits. A key element of the Atlas is an area classification based on the role that different locations play in air exchange and cool airflow in the Stuttgart region, based on topography, development density and character, and provision of green space. The Atlas distinguishes eight categories of areas in this manner, and for each of them different planning measures and recommendations are provided.

In addition to responding to local climate characteristics, the following principles form the basis for the planning recommendations included in the “Climate Booklet for Urban Development Online – Städtebauliche Klimafibel Online”: • Vegetation should be placed to surround developments and larger, connected green spaces should be created or maintained throughout developed areas to facilitate air exchange; • Valleys serve as air delivery corridors and should not be developed; • Hillsides should remain undeveloped, especially when development exists in valleys, since intensive cold- and fresh-air transport occurs here; • Saddle-like topographies serve as air induction corridors and should not be developed; • Urban sprawl is to be avoided; • All trees growing in the urban core with a trunk circumference of more than 80 cm at height of 1m are protected with a tree preservation order.

The implementation of the recommendations in the Climate Atlas is carried out by the Office for Urban Planning and Urban Renewal, supported by the Office for Environmental Protection. The Section of Urban Climatology within the Office for Environmental Protection evaluates the climatic implications of intended development and larger buildings. As a result of the implementation of the recommendations included in the Climate Atlas and Climate Booklet, over 39% of Stuttgart’s surface area has been put under the protection of nature conservation orders; a record in Germany.

As a result of greening actions, greenery covers more than 60% of the city. Stuttgart contains 5,000 hectares of forests and woodland, 65,000 trees in parks and open spaces and 35,000 street trees. 300,000 square meters of rooftops have been greened and 40 out of 250 kilometres of tram tracks have been grassed (as of 2007). In line with the city development vision, 60 hectares of greenfield land previously earmarked for development has been cut from the 2010 land development plan to protect existing green space. Targeted interventions such as a building ban in the hills around the town, and prevention of building projects that might obstruct the ventilation effect of nocturnal cold-air flows have resulted in preservation and enhancement of air exchange and cool air flows in the city.

The Climate Atlas 2008 was developed in close collaboration between the Verband Region Stuttgart (the association of regional cities and municipalities) and the City of Stuttgart. The Section of Urban Climatology within the Office for Environmental Protection of the City of Stuttgart contributed with its specialist knowledge. The evaluation and processing of the data for drawing up of the basic material required to produce the maps were undertaken by an external specialist consultant.

The City of Stuttgart emphasises the importance of public participation in greening strategies aimed at improving air quality and mitigation of the heat island effect. This is achieved through different strategies: • Since 1986, the City of Stuttgart has provided financial support to green about 60,000 square meters of roofs.

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Since 1992, a scheme has been in place for Stuttgart residents to adopt a tree.

Today some 182 caretakers have adopted almost 500 trees. They are responsible for watering the tree, reporting pest attacks, removing the leaf litter and fallen branches, and protecting the tree from dog fouling.

•

The Mayor of the City of Stuttgart supports the city greening initiatives aimed at improving air quality and reducing temperatures. The land use plan 2010 for Stuttgart envisages urban development under the slogan “urban – compact – green”. Climate change adaptation and mitigation are both high on the political agenda locally. The city has had a climate change mitigation strategy since 1997 and a climate change adaptation strategy was developed in 2012.

Success and Limiting Factors The following factors are highlighted: • Compilation of detailed information about the area’s topography, climate and land use allows for precise planning for different areas, which together aim to improve air quality and mitigate the urban heat island effect.

• The case demonstrates the advantages to a municipality of having in-house climatic research capacity to provide concrete knowledge of local conditions and remedies, as opposed to relying on an understanding derived from general principles.

Cumulatively, over several decades, the city has used its planning and landscaping powers to engineer an entire system of urban air circulation.

• Constructive use of existing regulations (e.g. the German Building Code) provides a mandate for the implementation of planning recommendations relating to local climate.

• Close collaboration between the Office for Environmental Protection (analysis of information, provision of recommendations) and the City Planning and Renewal team means that the recommended green infrastructure solutions are being implemented through spatial planning and development control.

Costs and Benefits The initiative was funded by the City of Stuttgart and the Verband Region Stuttgart. The funds were necessary to generate the climatic data around which the Climate Atlas is produced.

Legal Aspects The preservation of natural environment in urban areas is principally guided by the Federal Nature Conservation Act (BNatSchG) and by the Nature Conservation Act of the Land of Baden-Württemberg (NatSchG). The Federal Nature Conservation Act prohibits the modification or impairment of protected green spaces, or changing land use in these protected areas. Protected green spaces comprise: green zones in settlement areas, parks, cemeteries, significant gardens, single trees, lines of trees, avenues or groves in settled or under developed areas; and some plantings and protective wooded areas outside forests. Preserving the history and culture of the region can also be a reason for protecting green spaces.

German Building Code from 1960 is an important influence over urban development.

The regulations were revised in 2004, and now require precautionary environmental protection in urban zoning and planning practices. § 1 (5) states that urban development planning has to be sustainable, integrating social, economic and

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ecological demands, and also assuming responsibility for future generations. Urban development plans must contribute to the creation of an environment that is fit for human beings, that protects natural resources, that contributes to climate protection, as well as preserving and developing the urban pattern and appearance of the landscape of towns and cities. According to § 1 (6) the following aspects have to be taken into account (amongst others) when establishing urban development plans: the presentation of landscape plans and green open space structure plans, as well as other plans concerning issues such as water rights, waste rights and pollution control rights; and the conservation of the best possible air quality.

References Climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu. (2017). Stuttgart: combating the heat island effect and poor air quality with green ventilation corridors â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Climate-ADAPT. [online] Available at: http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/metadata/case-studies/stuttgart-combating-theheat-island-effect-and-poor-air-quality-with-green-ventilation-corridors [Accessed 19 Aug. 2017].

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1.8 Freshkills Park, New York, U.S. Every natural disaster has an "aftershock" in which we realize the fragility of our planet and the vulnerability of what we have built and created. We realize the threat to our lifestyles and the flaws in our design choices. The response to Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 was no different than the response to every other hurricane, earthquake, tornado , tsunami or monsoon that has wrought devastation in different parts of the world. We recognize our impact on the climate and promise to address how our development has caused severe disruptions in the planet's self-regulating processes. We acknowledge how outdated our systems of design have become in light of these damaging weather patterns and promise to change the way we design cities, coastlines and parks. We gradually learn from our mistakes and attempt to redress them with smarter choices for more sustainable and resilient design. Most importantly, we realize that we must learn from how natural processes self-regulate and apply these conditions to the way in which we design and build our urban spaces.

Since Hurricane Sandy, early considerations of environmentalists, planners and designers have entered the colloquiol vocabulary of politicians in addressing the issues of the United States' North Atlantic Coast. There are many issues that need to be tackled in regards to environmental development and urban design. One of the most prominent forces of Hurricane Sandy was the storm surge that pushed an enormous amount of ocean salt water far inland, flooding whole neighborhoods in New Jersey, submerging most of Manhattan's southern half, destroying coastal homes along Long Island, and the Rockaways and sweeping away parts of Staten Island. Yet, despite the tremendous damage, there was a lot that we learned from the areas that resisted the hurricane's forces and within those areas are the applications that we must address for the rehabilitation and future development of these vulnerable conditions. Ironically, one of the answers lies within Fresh Kills - Staten Island's out-of-commission landfill - the largest landfill in the United States until it was shutdown in 2001. Find out how after the break.

Fresh Kills Landfill was opened in 1947 along the western coast of Staten Island as a temporary solution for New York City's waste just in time to accommodate an exponential rise in consumption in the post-World War II United States. Three years later, and the landfill continued to operate until it became the principal landfill for New York City, collecting the solid waste from all five boroughs in the "age of disposability".

It is no wonder then, that the temporary solution swiftly became a 50-year one.

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Fresh Kills, Aerial View Courtesy of NYC Department of Parks and Recreation The cultural dynamics of the United States had changed in the years that followed World War II. Every veteran came back with the opportunity to buy a private home in the suburbs and start a family, while a technological explosion brought the military's reappropriated technology into every household via microwaves, refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines - and, of course, non-biodegradable plastics for every application. As the population exploded, so did its consumption of unrecyclable and disposable goods. Thus the landfill - once a 2,200-acre, sea level wetland - turned into 2,200 acres of hills as high as 200-feet that buried nearly 30,000 tons of trash daily by the 1990s. During its operation until 2001, the dump was the largest landfill in the world. It remains to be the largest-man made structure: what we see today as undulating 200-foot hills is actually buried garbage.

But the story of Fresh Kills does not end there. In fact, it is likely that within the next few decades, the perception of the former dump will have changed significantly with a few reprisals along the way.

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Fresh Kills Park Š Mikeric By the time of its closing in 2001, the city and state governments had recognized the negative impacts of the landfill on nearby communities. Congresswoman Susan Molinari spoke at a press conference that announced the closing, citing it as "one of the worst nightmares from a social, environmental and health impact that has affected Staten Islanders". And politicians claimed to have understood how not to treat solid waste, communities and the environment Over the last decade that Fresh Kills has closed, the Department of City Planning along with New York Department of Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Division of Coastal Resources has developed a 30-year master plan to regenerate the decommissioned landfill into New York City's largest park which will include five main areas that encompasses natural habitats for wildlife, the resurgence of the natural topography, programming for a variety of activities and circulation throughout the 2,200-acre expanse. The five areas will be composed of The Confluence - cultural and recreational waterfront park that includes Creek Landing with access to the city's waterways and areas for gathering and recreation and The Point with sports fields and event spaces; North Park - vast natural settings featuring footpaths and trails of scenic overlooks; South Park - active recreational areas; East Park - connections to existing roadways and routes with programming for nature education areas; and West Park - an earthwork monument on a vast hilltop.

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Courtesy of Department of Parks and Recreation - Draft Master Plan Renowned Landscape Architecture firm, James Corner Field Operations won the 2001 competition to design the park and its vast areas over the next thirty years, actively incorporating sustainable energy infrastructure. Natural gas collection from the decomposing waste will be used to heat approximately 22,000 homes, and photovoltaic cells, wind turbines, and geothermic heating and cooling will be considered for the parks' development to keep to the city's sustainable energy commitments. The Land Art Generator Initiative hosted a competition last year for designs of sustainable infrastructure within Fresh Kills. The diverse results can be viewed here where designers are exploring ways to address these topics throughout the park.

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SceneSensor // Crossing Social and Ecological Flows / James Murray and Shota Vashakmadze; Courtesy of LAGI The planning, which can be found on NYC.gov's website is broken down into three tenyear phases, the first of which includes opening South and North Park and the Confluence to the public, completing a roadway to connect to the West Shore Expressway, opening of recreational facilities, early programs for non-profit and commercial development, and closing and capping the East and West mounds of the landfill, according to the Draft Master Plan. Currently, Fresh Kills Park hosts an annual Sneak Peak at the park's development (this year's is scheduled for September 29th, 2013) which allows the public to preview its transformation.

Despite the vast devastation wreaked by Hurricane Sandy, the storm helped prove exactly how important the initiative to redevelop Fresh Kills Park really is, and contributed to establishing the long held belief that our coastlines are incredibly important to the protection of inland areas. Michael Kimmelman revisits the significance of the Fresh Kills landscape in an article in the New York Times late last year. The wetlands and natural vegetation of the park, which has grown in since the landfill being filled in 2001, helped buffer the impact on neighboring residential areas in Travis, Bulls Head, New Springville and Arden Heights. The permeable soil of wetlands absorb much of the storm surge and redistribute the accumulating water in ways that concrete and asphalt cannot.

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Fresh Kills Park Š Flickr User GSZ. Used under Creative Commons The value of Fresh Kill Landfill / Park is indelible to the protection of neighborhoods. Once a curse on the communities, the 2,200-acres of land has proven to be a savior for those same communities. Coastal buffers through vegetation and natural development are not new to city planning discourse. States throughout the East Coast of the United States have developed numerous initiatives to keep these areas unsettled and develop waterfront parks that could absorb the brunt of the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean. There are many options to creating buffers and protection against storm surge, some of which we discussed in an earlier article on ArchDaily.

But some of the most effective methods of dealing with natural disasters is mitigating their impact rather than attempting to stop them altogether. We cannot rely solely on man-made systems when they do not adapt to changing impacts. We can build floodgates, dams and dikes such as exist in the Netherlands, but this may cause further damage to self-regulating ecosystems and will require constant redevelopment as storms continue to ravage the coast.

The redevelopment of our coastlines calls for the consideration of natural solutions that are developed with coastal erosion in mind. Governor Cuomo of New York passed into a law a buyout program that would encourage longtime residents in flood prone regions along the coast to sell their damaged homes and property to the government to be redevelopment into coastal reefs, wetlands and parkland that could serve as buffers for future storms.

The program is voluntary but the initiative recognizes the significance and dangers of urban development along flooding regions. Even considerations to develop wetlands along Manhattan's exposed south-east coast have been introduced by design firms Architecture Research Office and DLAND Studio.

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The impact of Hurricane Sandy has been significant and has reverberated throughout the design community as we struggle to determine future solutions before another storm hits with as much severity. We have acquired a sense of vulnerability that proves just how unsustainable and non-resilient our urban development and infrastructural growth has been to natural disasters. Preparation and resilience should be as key to our vocabulary as sustainability has been in the past decade. This involves altering our cultural wiring when it pertains to our relationship with the environment.

While Fresh Kills Landfill helped preserve 2,200 acres of land for eventual park use, it is a significant lesson in the rampant growth of our consumption. It is true that the landfill has been decommissioned and the land will now go through years of reclamation, but our rate of consumption has not slowed. NYC's trash has simply been rediverted to several dumps in New Jersey. This is not a solution, it is a distraction from the bigger issue of the way we consume and dispose of products and produce non-recyclable goods with a short life of functionality. We produce goods that we consider disposable because it is easier to replace than to fix.

San Francisco has been on track to solving the root of this problem with a commitment to Zero Waste by 2020. An ambitious program of waste management and a series of ordinances that began in the 1990s have been established to alter the culture of disposal and consumption.

Residents are first encouraged and then ordered to sort their trash into recycling and composting bins to avoid their accumulation in landfills. So far, SF claims to divert 80% of its solid waste from landfills and hopes that by 2020 this number will reach 100. In this way, citizens are forced to consider the impact of the non-recyclable and nonreusable products that they purchase and dispose of, and enforce a conscious effort to make responsible choices about what can be reabsorbed into the market. This is a change in the culture of disposability onset by the overabundance of goods in the mid 20th century - the "throw-away era" as reported by Kirk Johnson.

When we consider the impact that landfills have on nearby communities, on ecosystems, on our environment; when we have to ask why we don't want to live near a landfill, when we consider what the world can look like without landfills that occupy 3.5 square miles and are instead filled with parkland, recreational areas and healthy ecosystems, it should be enough encouragement to change the way in which we participate in the market and change our relationship to consumption.

References Vinnitskaya, I. (2013). Landfill Reclaimation: Fresh Kills Park Develops as a Natural Coastal Buffer and Parkland for Staten Island. [online] ArchDaily. Available at: http://www.archdaily.com/339133/landfill-reclamation-fresh-kills-park-develops-as-anatural-coastal-buffer-and-parkland-for-staten-island [Accessed 19 Aug. 2017].

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