Briony Rogers helps cities to connect to their environment to better survive drought and storm surges.
An infiltration basin at the White Gum Valley development in Perth, Australia, manages stormwater runoff and provides shade.“When we think about making decisions on how we shape our cities, that deep connection and stewardship of water is really important,” says Briony Rogers, a civil engineer at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute and director of MSDI Water, the institute’s water research hub in Melbourne, Australia.
Australia is home to the world’s oldest continuing culture, and Rogers says that partnerships with Indigenous communities are fundamental to creating water-sensitive cities and landscapes. “The Indigenous ways of knowing and being and doing provide a really important pathway for us to think more systemically and long-term and holistically [about] our relationship with water and with land, and our role as custodians,” she says.
That requires a radical rethink of how cities are engineered at the macro and micro scale, not only to insulate cities against water shocks, but also to use water to make them more liveable and healthy.Credit: The Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive CIties Instead of being directed away from the city via pipes or drains, storm water can be captured, stored and used to irrigate gardens and public parks, which then provide shade and other cooling effects during periods of drought and extreme heat. Playgrounds can serve as temporary catchments for excess rainwater, with technology such as artificial sand aquifers and ‘wicking beds’ that can use it to water parkland grass.
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