Urban Water Management, Planning, and Design: Links, Opportunities, and Challenges

About this Research Topic

Background

Urban water systems are critical infrastructure that support residents, businesses, industries, schools, and landscapes. Urban water systems include not only the built infrastructures, but also the institutions, landscapes, buildings, and habits of residents, which all together shape how water is used and managed in cities. An important area for future work is the intersection of urban water management, urban planning, and environmental design. How do cities integrate centralized and engineered infrastructure solutions with decentralized and nature-based solutions? How can policies and governance structures be integrated and collaborative across sectors and boundaries to achieve urban water sustainability? How can urban and landscape design support goals of adaptive water management strategies and coping with climate change impacts? How can design fields contribute to improved performance and sustainability of urban water systems? How are the decisions made in the process of planning, designing, and managing urban water systems and who benefits and who is left out? 
This Research Topic invites original research to understand the opportunities and challenges for improving the understanding of connections between urban water management, urban planning, and landscape and environmental design.
The collection seeks original articles from any relevant discipline and especially encourages collaborative works that address cross-cutting topics. Articles should focus on research that explores topics such as: how water is inter-linked in social, ecological, and technological systems in cities; evaluating sustainability and resiliency in the processes and outcomes of urban water systems; identifying emerging research areas or paradigm shifts for future work; and/or explorations of unjust or inequitable impacts of urban water management, planning or design. Case studies from any region of the world are welcome. 
Example topics are:·      Studies that describe or quantify links between urban water management, urban and community planning, and landscape and environmental design·      Methods and approaches for improving joint collaboration ·      Comparative analysis of case studies at the neighborhood, metropolitan, or regional scale that demonstrate new approaches and contributions to literature  ·      Original research articles, literature reviews, case studies, technical notes, or policy analysis that demonstrates a novel aspect of or approach to links between urban water management, planning, and design·      Watershed-scale assessments of urban water systems and effects on suburban, peri-urban, and rural lands

Keywords: Urban Water Management, Design, water infrastructure, urban planning, environmental design

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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