Water-Age-Neutral Habitats. Re-designing the urban water cycle for a renewable city-territory

Knowledge of how to articulate the “urban transition” is today urgently needed. While urbanization is on a steadily growing trend, systemic territorial strategies able to mitigate and adapt to Climate Change effects seem to lack. More specifically, being anthropogenic impacts increasingly pervasive, urbanization has rapidly-growing effects on the water cycle as a whole. However, while the effects of urbanised/urbanising areas on water quantity have been well studied for flood prevention, other effects –as those related to water quality– are mostly unknown.
Taking hold from the most recent developments on the “water age” concept, i.e. the time that water resides in the landscape before exiting as runoff or evaporation, the project proposes a proof of concept study on the notion of “water-age-neutral” design. Based on both PI’s specific expertise (knowledge of the contemporary city’s most recent forms/dynamics and water cycle’s dynamics) the “water-age-neutral” design concept envisions the possibility of designing the City-Territory without net impacts on its “natural” water age balance.
The project proposes to analyse a set of water/land use interaction patterns and their outputs in terms of water age within a given case study. A set of considerations on the impact (qualitative/quantitative) of specific urban forms/land uses on the water cycle are expected.