From District to City Scale: The Potential of Water-Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD)

The summer of 2022 was one of the hottest and driest summers that Germany experienced in the 21st century. Water levels in rivers sank dramatically with many dams and reservoirs running dry; as a result, fields could not be irrigated sufficiently, and even power generation and supply were affected. The impact of abnormally high temperatures for extended periods (heatwaves) is not restricted to nature and the economy but is also a considerable public health burden. Experts worldwide agree that these extreme weather events are being driven by climate change and will increase in intensity and frequency in the future. The adverse impact of these extreme weather events multiplies among dense urban environments, e.g., through heat islands. This calls for cities to take action to heat-proof and water-secure their urban developments. Water-Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) is one such approach to mitigate the aforementioned challenges by leveraging the urban water ecosystem with special attention to the subject of water reclamation, retention, treatment and distribution. This paper introduces and builds upon a prototype of WSUD that centers around an artificial lake as an integrated water resource management system (IWRMS) fed by treated grey water and storm water obtained from two housing blocks flanking the water reservoir. Based on the specifications of this prototype, indicators of site suitability are derived and applied to identify potential locations for replicable projects in the city of Darmstadt. The results confirm the impact WSUD can have: a total of 22 sites with 2527 apartments are found suitable for prototype implementation in Darmstadt. Savings in town water consumption from these 22 sites would add up to 147 million liters. Further benefits include the provision of 24 million liters of irrigation water, storm water retention, adiabatic cooling during heatwave, increased biodiversity and the improvement in livability of the sites and the city