Declaring a climate emergency - what next?

We know that the effects of climate change on the Aotearoa New Zealand city will be the biggest disruptive event in the history of New Zealand urbanism.

Many cities in Aotearoa New Zealand have declared a climate emergency. Can our existing urban development planning model survive the coming environmental depredation occasioned by climate change or will this urban model have to change?

Understanding that the environmental problems caused by climate change, problems like pluvial flooding, contaminated stormwater, increasing heat island effect, and sea-level rise, are not isolated problems but part of larger, connected environmental systems is an important first step.

Xinglong Catchment, Jinan, PR China. GIS image, Kevin Zhu.

By reframing the city within the urban landscape, we can start to understand the impact of these larger environmental problems and start to develop strategies to build resilience. 

Using landscape tools such as catchment analysis and GIS modelling, a city can be understood as part of a system, such as the hydrological gradient from hinterland to the receiving environment. 

The environmental consequences of climate change, such as pluvial flooding, can be modelled as can the appropriate remediation measures, such as dentition zones and conveyance channels. A city can thus become resilient to the effects of climate change by developing an adaptive landscape strategy. The city would develop an indigenous and ecologically viable landscape that would ameliorate the consequences of contaminated stormwater, reduce flooding, and increase biodiversity,  

Reykjavik in Iceland (where rising temperatures are drastically reshaping the country’s landscape) is aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2040.

For this to happen, the contemporary urban planning model must be transformed. The existing model, a densely populated, gridded master plan is typically highly impervious with limited open space.  The adoption of remediation measures that will help to address these serious environmental problems are not compatible with this model. For these measures to work, the city must become more open and greener. Making the city pervious, allows water to be absorbed, trees to grow and help with transpiration indigenous revegetation to be restored will help.  Specific measures could include the restoration of coastal edges to absorb storm surges and increasing biodiversity through the creation of eco patches tat reduce the urban heat island effect.

Giving room for these necessary measures within the normal real estate programme is challenging.  One solution is for the typical urban block building programme to be reconfigured by ‘clustered’ the buildings into more compact denser forms. In this way the exigency of the real estate development can be met while building environmental resilience. 

More and more cities around the world are declaring a climate emergency.

Landscape architects are uniquely placed to help in the development of this new urban model. Drawing on the traditional hinterland of landscape practice, a knowledge of environmental systems especially hydrological, landscape architects can help urban development stakeholders understand the spatial implications of building resilience to climate change.

Placing the city within the larger urban landscape, evaluating the implications of environmental remediation against conventional urban goals, and demonstrating practical strategies to build urban resilience, are going to be critical yet necessary tasks to make our cities and citizens safe. 

Matthew’s new book, Watercity: Practical solution for Climate Change, will be published by Routledge in late 2020.