“Implementation Of Constructed Wetlands Landscape Design” “A Resilient Application”

Abstract

Cities are centers of economic activities and opportunities, and according to recent United Nations' reports half of the world's population are currently living in cities, resulting in a phenomenon often referred to as the “Urban Turn. However, cities are also places that face accumulated stresses and sudden shocks, resulting in social, physical, or economic breakdowns. That is unless a city is resilient. The concept of urban resilience has increasingly gained the interests of governments, urban designers, and various practitioners worldwide due to the unprecedented urbanization and the rising impacts of climate change, natural and man-made disasters, as well as other chronic stresses. As defined by the United Nations resilience is the capacity of a certain system subjected to potential hazards or stresses to adapt, resist, or change in order to maintain its functions and structure, through learning from past experiences to inform future risk management measures. Consequently the main goal of resilient landscape is to prepare, retrofit, and adapt urban systems and communities to bounce back and recover more quickly from disruptive events and chronic stresses, either now or in the future. Constructed wetland are considered an artificial mimic of natural wetlands, one of the most biologically diverse natural ecosystems which offer a number of resilient and sustainable functions, some of which are management of water flow of rivers, mitigation of floods, climate regulations, conservation of water sources, water purification, as well as maintaining biological diversity. The main scope of this research is to study the potential benefits of constructed wetlands landscape design as a resilient approach to achieve water management, stormwater and flood control, improving water and air quality, in addition to aesthetic, recreational, and socio-economic functions.