Effective flood control can only be met with a holistic approach. Peter Mwambu and Simon Akena invite us to Kampala in Uganda and discuss lessons learned from integrating Blue-Green Infrastructure.
Access to affordable and clean water cannot be taken for granted in Nairobi's neighbourhood of Mathare. Gacheke Gachihi outlines the structural changes needed to guarantee affordable water for all.
Dipak Bhowmick, Kumar Abhishek, and Keshav Jha present an innovative approach to improve access to clean drinking water and sanitation for Bangladesh's urban poor.
Set in the desert and with large numbers of unregistered citizens, water justice is a major concern in Lima, Peru. Fenna Imara Hoefsloot outlines how the city's digital water infrastructure excludes parts of the population from reliable water supply.
Providing all citizens with access to sanitation is a challenge in many urban centres. Ashlie Bermudez presents how non-profit social enterprise SOIL is meeting this challenge with innovative, sustainable sanitation technology in Haiti.
Climate-resilient and energy-efficient cities need to think about water reuse. Especially in South Asian countries like Pakistan, where the potential of wastewater-to-energy systems is incredibly high. By Masooma Batool
Chennai’s wetlands are prone to disastrous floods and droughts. Jayshree Vencatesan delves into the city’s past and shows just how important understanding city hydrology is for urban planning.
Safe, affordable housing is not an end in itself but should be interwoven with other interventions to improve access to related services and benefits. As the pandemic exacerbates shortcomings in housing programmes around the world, Vidhee Garg on the need to re-think housing and to look beyond its purely quantitative aspects.
The Covid-19 pandemic increases the already existing water scarcity in Indonesia's capital, affecting already disadvantaged inhabitants most of all, writes Akash Sahu.
A well-functioning system for water and sanitation must address the needs of under-served urban residents. Eden Mati-Mwangi shows how a systems-change approach can have a lasting impact on Kenya’s sanitations sector.
Drawing on examples from China and India, Betsy Otto, Xiaotian Fu, and Sahana Goswami from the World Resource Institute present the benefits of circular economy approaches in urban wastewater treatment.
Creating urban spaces that allow for the free flow and penetration of water and wind is essential to the survival of water-based cities like Bangkok. “Landscape porosity” can help us better understand and defend these urban ecosystems in times of climate change, says Kotchakorn Voraakhom.
The waste produced by cities does not need to be dumped – but instead can become the starting point of a new production cycle, argues Nick Jeffries from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Water as a common resource that no one should derive profit from – an idea that stands in crass contrast to privatising urban water management. Kostas Nikolaou, professor and activist with the Greek water movement K136, portrays their successful fight against privatisation.
With cities continuously more threatened by climate change induced disasters, urban planning's reflex response is to protect cities against nature. But what if the solution lies in working with nature instead against it? Architect Kongjiang Yu invites our readers to imagine what cities could look like if they took into account ancient wisdom on spatial planning.
