Author(s): Juliana Uribe Aguado; Juan Pablo Rodríguez Sánchez

Linked Author(s): Juan Pablo Rodríguez Sánchez

Keywords: Nature-Based Solutions, Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems, Urban Planning, EuPOLIS Project, Bogotá (Colombia)

Abstract: Many cities around the world are facing environmental, social, and economic urban challenges due to the rapid urbanization process and the impacts of climate change. The EU-funded EuPOLIS project is developing an urban planning methodology for nature-based solutions (NBS) integration in urban ecosystems to enhance citizens' public health, wellbeing, and improve the city's resilience. The introduction of NBS help to address key challenges such as low environmental quality, low presence of biodiversity in public space, water-stressed resources, and undervalued use of public space. The EuPOLIS methodology is being tested in four cities (Belgrade, Lodz, Pireus, and Gladsaxe), and the process is followed for potential replication on five cities (Palermo, Limassol, Trebinje, Bogotá, and Fengxi New City).In Bogotá the Renovation and Urban Development Enterprise and the Universidad de los Andes are working together to applying the EuPOLIS methodology to an urban renewal project named El Reencuentro. The EuPOLIS methodology is composed of five components: (1) the baseline status definition, (2) the contextual and evaluation indicators design, (3) the co-design and construction of NBS in the demo cities, (4) the monitoring process of citizens interaction with NBS, and finally (5) the compilation and data analysis by an expert board. In the case of Bogotá components (1) and (2) have been already accomplished. An assessment for Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) implementation and the design of monitoring strategies to quantify NBS benefits have been also carried out. The baseline status was defined by a stakeholders mapping and the implementation of two questionaries. Then, urbanism, society, environment, public health, and economy indicators were constructed by an expert board to highlight the most important urban challenges of NBS implementation in the case study. From the baseline status, permeability loss was identified as one of the main urban challenges of the analysis in El Reencuentro. To mitigate this challenge, the implementation of SUDS in the public space is being considered to emulate and restore the hydrological processes before urban development. For the selection of the best SUDS types in the case study, a priority analysis was developed to identify the zones with a high scarcity of ecosystem services in comparison with other public spaces. Then, an opportunity analysis was implemented to highlight the zones with a high potential of ecosystem services generation comparatively with other study zones. Finally, a feasibility and optimization tool was implemented to identify the best SUDS location on the public space to achieve three objective functions (i.e. runoff volume minimization, maximization of ecosystem services, and minimization of construction costs). This feasibility and optimization tool is being adapted to include other types of NBS and a monitoring strategy for ecosystem services quantification is also being designed.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/IAHR-39WC252171192022SS1707

Year: 2022