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Green Infrastructure for Water Security-Based Urban Planning: A Comparative Analysis of Systemic Urban Plans and Spatial Flood-based GI Priority Layouts in Monterrey and Brussels

par Khodadad, Mina
Président du jury Cárdenas-Barrón, Leopoldo Eduardo
Promoteur Khan, Ahmed Z. ;Aguilar-Barajas, Ismael
Publication Non publié, 2023-12-05

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

The significance of water security (WS) has been underlined throughout the world reinforcing the necessity for adaptable planning. In light of the increasing environmental uncertainties observed in urbanized areas, there exists a critical need for urban planners to embrace more comprehensive and adaptable strategies, while also developing innovative tools and methodologies to effectively implement them. In this regard, green infrastructure (GI), as an adaptable urban planning strategy, has the potential to effectively address WS challenges in multiple ways, such as increasing water infiltration and storage capacity, decreasing urban runoff, and enhancing the quality of water resources. However, to promote GI it is required to develop a strong empirical basis to understand the benefits of integrating it in urban water management. Likewise, it is important to prioritize comprehensive spatial planning that considers the diverse range of services provided by nature. This research aims to investigate the complex domain of urban WS, with a particular focus on the potential of GI to effectively tackle these requirements. By incorporating GI into urban planning, it becomes feasible to address water-related difficulties while simultaneously promoting the development of sustainable resilient urban spaces that can persist over long periods of time.By definition, urban planning includes two key dimensions: urban plans and strategies along with spatial planning and analysis. Accordingly, this thesis is divided into two phases each focusing on one key dimension of urban planning. The first phase concentrates on examining the integration of GI interventions within local WS-linked plans. This phase focuses on WS as a whole and makes an effort to increase local understanding of urban planning policies as well as identify strategic areas that require further attention. The second phase takes a step forward toward GI spatial planning by taking into consideration the site-specific ecological context and WS needs in order to select the priority regions for GI initiatives. As WS is a highly intricate concept that is influenced by numerous different causes, for the second phase only urban flooding-related issues were considered as major elements impacting general urban WS. Also, to have an inclusive strategy for conducting spatial planning, a resilience thinking framework was employed as a recently suggested method in adaptive urban planning. This approach is particularly useful when dealing with the hazards of urban floods.In order to maximize the relevance and validity of the results, a variation finding multiple-case study (Monterrey, Mexico, and Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium) comparison is utilized in this research. The outcomes of the thesis highlight the political and geographic areas inside the case-study regions that need attention for GI implementations to face WS challenges. A spatial decision support tool (FRUGISP) is also developed based on the GIS-MCDA approach to prioritize GI localizations based on the urban flood resilience index and GI suitability criteria. This study's approach (both phases) could serve further comparative evaluations of distinct urban areas and be applied towards assessing GI implications in WS-based Urban Planning (WSbUP) in other parts of the world.