Designing cities for people and nature
Cities and towns have historically been designed with people in mind.
Planning systems prioritize housing, transport, economic growth and flood defense, often treating rivers and creeks as infrastructure rather than living ecosystems.
Since the dawn of industrialization and modern city planning, floodplains have been built on, rivers straightened, creeks buried and waterways increasingly engineered to move water through cities rather than support life.
The consequences are stark and hard to ignore: degraded urban waterways, declining freshwater species and whole cities vulnerable to climate-driven floods, heatwaves and water scarcity.
Our rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands occupy only a tiny fraction of the planet yet support a third of all vertebrate species. Importantly, freshwater ecosystems act as ecological life-support systems, sustaining a range of species, including humans.
Alarming figures
This is why the latest figures are so alarming.
Some vertebrate animal populations have fallen by 85 percent over the last 50 years. This represents one of the steepest declines among groups of species on Earth.
Urban waterways sit at the heart of this rapid decline. Countries have started to sign up to ambitious global agreements, pledging to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. But translating these promises into real change remains a major challenge.
Significant contribution
This is where urban planners can make a significant contribution, specifically by shaping the environments where freshwater pressures are most intense, particularly in towns and cities.
Every day, they make decisions affecting how land is zoned, how stormwater is managed, where green spaces are located, what buffers are protected and how urban form evolves.
Yet many urban planners lack the support and ecological knowledge needed to incorporate freshwater biodiversity into daily practice. They need the tools, training and support to recognize freshwater ecosystems as valuable living systems that underpin urban resilience, human health and everyday well-being, rather than as obstacles to overcome.
Environmental stewardship
This different way of thinking about freshwater is taking hold in a number of cities across the globe. And urban planners aren’t working alone.
Local residents, ecologists, engineers and even schools are often involved from the outset.
Together, they bring diverse knowledge of the local context and can foster a shared sense of environmental stewardship. Early collaboration helps ensure freshwater biodiversity isn’t an afterthought and encourages lasting care for rivers, ponds and wetlands.
Education is important too. To foster this transition, barriers between urban planning, ecology and engineering can be broken down. Land-use decisions can then be made with a clearer understanding of how water behaves across an entire watershed and how that shapes freshwater habitats.
Just as important is how knowledge flows. Freshwater biodiversity research doesn’t always reach the people making day-to-day planning decisions or those designing and building projects on the ground.
When planners, scientists and developers have access to shared tools, open data and simple design guidance, nature-positive ideas are far more likely to make it off the page and into our towns and cities.
Clear rules are also useful. Biodiversity targets only make a difference if they are backed by practical local standards and the resources to implement them.
For example, we need standards on how to protect riverbanks, restore floodplains and design stormwater systems that work with nature rather than against it. Without that clarity or the training and resources to support it, planners are often left trying to balance competing demands on their own.
Bridging gaps in knowledge
There are still big gaps in what we know. How much space do urban rivers really need, and how does this vary from place to place? Which nature-based solutions work best across different landscapes?
However, planners cannot answer these questions alone. Scientists, engineers, economists and policymakers can work with planners to turn our cities into hubs for freshwater restoration and recovery rather than hotspots of decline.
Our cities can become places where rivers, wetlands and people thrive together, with benefits that flow far beyond city boundaries.
The author is the Principal Urban Planner of CONCEP Inc., a consultancy firm specializing ecosystem-based urban planning and design
