The Role of Beach Sports and community participation in Investigating the sustainability criteria in historic centers of AL-Hilla city

Abstract

Babylon city (18-6 B.C.) located on Euphrates river which represents the First nucleus of the historic centers in the province of Babylon. The river coast has been an important part for thousands of years ago, as a socio-cultural activity. In (1101 A.C) historic downtown was found in AL-Hilla city south of Babylon city. The beach continued to be used for cultural and social activities similar to the past. Recently, these historic centers with their river coast are suffering from neglect, decay, and depreciation, as a result of, random urban planning.This paper is an attempt to adopt an analytical descriptive curriculum to develop and revival the two historic centers, through employment beach sports, as well as depending on community participation in design decision, to harmonize sustainability thought and achieving human well-being in Babylon city. Its discussed the role of the beach sports to configuration river coast in the two historic centers and downtown, in another word, how can the establishment of beach sports play a basic role in Investigating the sustainability criteria in Al-Hillah city through community participation?.The conclusions show that the establishment beach sport activates in the city today achieve (57.3%)of the overall sustainability criteria, and it contributed in development of two historic centers in another word, beach sports activities establishment will be supported the sustainable criteria, as well as, the reason of the low achievement of the current sustainable criteria is environmental degradation.