Monitoring the state of the underwater environment is particularly difficult as these areas are generally inaccessible to man. With the advent of the revolutionary technology of SCUBA, man has been able to gain access to this underwater realm, which consequently has given rise to a lucrative tourism industry. It however raises concerns for environmental protection and a balance between economic benefits and the impact made on the underwater environment. To aid in addressing this concern, The SISID Project was devised. Crowdsourcing was to be utilised to gather information from the diving community which would be integrated into an online divesite information system. Through GIS, spatial analysis was performed to identify patterns and relationships within the dive data that can be used for monitoring, management, decision making and identifying potential business opportunities. Technical and financial studies of the project itself indicate strong potential for a socially relevant, and self-sustaining, environmentally focused program.

The city of Rome 3 million inhabitants are mostly unaware of the significant geo-hydro-meteo risks affecting the urban ecosystems. Floods, droughts, landslides, sinkholes as well as urban and industrial pressures impacting the safety and sustainability of natural and human resources. The city, following a significant urban and demographic growth of the last 50 years, is still one of the largest agricultural metropolises in the world. Fair and safe access to water, food, energy and environmental resources is no longer a mere optimization challenge (i.e. given for granted), but a real (and actually pressing) urban and land development challenge. Decision makers are prompted to take important actions and design a medium to long term vision to guarantee (preserve) the abundance of resources that gave birth to one of the wealthiest early civilization in the world. Competing (often) conflicting economic sectors, uncertainties driven by social and climate change, and lack of financial resources to cover all needs and mitigate all natural and human-driven hazard characterize a multi-risk multi-actor multi-sector grand challenge for the City of Rome. This challenging framework is not merely a technical challenge but several diverse factors increase the complexity from multiple perspectives (governance and policy, human behaviour, social and cultural etc.). The European Green Deal is providing an integrated framework where long time existing policies and technical regulations on safe and sustainable natural and urban planning (Water Framework, Biodiversity, Circular economy, Blue Growth Directives, etc.) are joining efforts under one umbrella embracing green and blue principles. Nature based solutions offer multiple advantages, but the transition from gray infrastructure and engineering towards green and blue growths is facing several technical and cultural challenges. This contribution presents experiences, issues, insights derived from recent and ongoing scientific and applied research projects and urban development projects for the city of Rome with specific regard to water resource and risk management programs and interlinked landscape planning actions. Among the interlinkages and multi-disciplinary feedbacks the water-human, water-food and the extended water-food-ecosystem nexus dynamics are investigated and presented at the conceptual level. Specific interest and focus of this work is the value and the need of preserving and further developing green, blue spaces as well the significant natural and cultural heritage that characterize the city of Rome. Further foci are linked to the cultural, social and economic value of also preserving the agricultural footprint of the extended metropolitan region of Rome (and Lazio region). The presented case study shows the importance of enlarging and interfacing the perspectives while implemented the European Green Deal at the urban level testing both bottom-up and top-down approaches, investigating the optimal governance dynamics that shall be implemented for successful embracing of water and blue actions. A wide range of components, methods, procedures that govern safe and sustainable urban planning are presented from citizen engagement to urban and engineering design for identifying and fostering the most suitable actions that would promote resilience and safety of complex urban setting, like the selected city of Rome case study.

With the growing awareness of the environmental change impact on various spheres of the built environment, there is a shift from the rhetoric of sustainability and various mitigation measures to a sharp focus on the concept of resilience and adaptation tools. The debate on adequate urban responses to environmental change considers many different yet interconnected pillars: from adaptive and participatory governance, across flexible and agile planning instruments and tools, to a responsive design of the built environment. This paper focuses on a very local level of an individual building, seen as a crucial element of any urban pattern and, therefore, the critical condition towards success or failure in achieving urban resilience. Based on the environmental assessment of the adaptive reuse of the Z Hotel Holborn in London, we identify the design principles towards improving resilience. Specifically, we use the well-established Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) to 1) examine if the case building applies the measures to decrease its internal vulnerability and 2) reduce the negative effects of external hazards. Furthermore, we present the measures for protecting vulnerable parts of the building from damage and protecting exposed parts of the building from material degradation. A particular value of the paper is in providing concrete design components, which decrease the vulnerability index of urban systems, help increase urban resilience, and preserve local biodiversity.

Governments and real estate developers around the world have been implementing measures in attempts to ensure the continuation and preservation of local cultures, encourage public activities to be community-run, and promote bottom-up dispute resolution. Despite such efforts, rapid urban growth has oftentimes proven to be too powerful a force and even contradictory to a movement toward more community-based urban management. This paper targets the Azabu District in Minato City, where there are famous landmarks, such as the Tokyo Tower, as well as multiple large real estate developments by Japan’s largest real estate developers, many of which have been designated by the Japanese government as national strategic development zones. Out of the 155 embassies in Japan (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2019), 45 are in Azabu district alone (Masai, 2012) and 82 in all of Minato ward, making the city one of the most international and political cities in terms of population demographics, facilities, and cultures. Much of the bottom-up, grassroots community efforts and the research thereof in Japan tend to focus on rural, depopulating areas or relatively suburban areas outside of the central areas of major cities. However, this research will focus on a densely populated town, hence taking on an unorthodox approach to Japanese community research. In recent years, jichi-kai, a type of Japanese organization works as a centralized organization of established organizations in a local community that currently has no legal positions and were used during WWII to mobilize people to war (1) has been adapted by private real estate companies as a tool for co-funding and improving the residential environment, dispute resolution, and organizing community activities. They have been studied in the fields of sociology, political science, public administration, and anthropology. For example, Bestor (1989) studied jichi-kai as “the social construction and maintenance of a neighborhood in a society where such communities are said to be outmoded,”(2) which shares with this paper an interest in maintaining neighborhood communities in the capricious modern society. This paper is based on such research, but differs in that it focuses on the effect that the increased involvement of private companies have had on jichi-kais and local communities in cities. This paper adapts the grounded theory approach using materials from interviews held with community leaders from 3 types of jichi-kais, local business owners, involved real estate companies, and local government officials in the Azabu District. Historical analysis on the relationships and organizations seen in the district has also been done concurrently. The paper identifies three models of jichi-kai that have evolved through the major changes of rapid urbanization through adaptation and still play a vital role in local community activities and public, formerly government duties throughout Japan. The three models show that communities in the target district have maintained their traditions by integrating private real estate companies into the operations of their town management organizations and/or have learned to work with such companies with the understanding that town management does not have to be a zero-sum game between “locals” and “outsiders.” Applbaum (1996), who provides an extensive literature on jichi-kai, states that it has been historically abiding yet the continuation thereof is problematic, a conclusion that have been made by many others. In contrast, this paper highlights not only issues of jichi-kai but also the potential that they have as solutions to community ecosystems in cities undergoing rapid urbanization. Though much of the research is based on the premise of a developing city in Japan, the models presented can be used as a guide for communities with differing cultural contexts.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has set itself the ambitious objective of reducing by 55% greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, despite an estimated strong population growth. This goal is in line with the European “Green Deal” strategy, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. In order to ensure that this objective is reachable, the Luxembourg Ministry of Energy and Spatial Planning has launched an interdisciplinary competition to gather strategic planning proposals aimed at producing ecological transition scenarios for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and its border territories by 2050. The cross-border dimension of this strategy comes from the fact that the country is part of a functional space that goes well beyond its borders. With more than 200,000 workers crossing the border every day to work in Luxembourg, this small country is one of those which welcome the most cross-border workers in the world. These scenarios are intended to help achieve the objective, but also to better understand what the consequences will be in terms of lifestyle adaptations. The idea behind this competition is that it is only by profoundly changing the spatial organisation of the Grand Duchy as well as many aspects of its inhabitants’ lifestyles that Luxembourg will be able to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Teleworking, reduced soil sealing, large-scale recycling and upcycling, electromobility and renaturation of urban brownfields are just a few examples of the different levers that will have to be activated and that have been put forward by the different competing teams to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The teams were also asked to quantify the contributions of their proposals to the decarbonisation objective, in order to monitor the progress to be made between now and 2030/2050. In this presentation, the first part will be dedicated to a territorial diagnosis of the cross-border functional area of Luxembourg and of the challenges that are raised. In a second part, we will briefly present the specifications of the international competition. Finally, we will see what the main ideas retained by the winning teams are, and in what proportions they can contribute to the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond the Luxembourg example, the lessons learned will be of interest to all planners who deal with issues of resilience and adaptability of territories.

Unprecedented economic and population growth rates in the last two decades led to a major physical transformation of tiny-hydrocarbon city-state Qatar. The scale of transformation was historic which led to improved well-being and a high-quality lifestyle. This paper presents a detailed, integrated urban metabolism or resource throughput to this tiny city-state. We quantified material, energy and water consumption between 1998 and 2019 using locally generated data at a higher resolution. Major hydrocarbon and infrastructure projects such as LNG/GTL, road networks throughout the country and infrastructure related to the upcoming sporting event FIFA® such as stadiums, metro contributed to the growth of resource use. Also, we discussed the impact of changing lifestyle patterns over the last few decades on various resource commodities. Resource consumption such as water, energy, and materials has increased significantly, and there is a little sign of slowing down. Although the emissions from the industrial sector are saturating, the urban emissions resulting from domestic electricity/water consumption and transport is relentlessly marching upwards. The domestic landfill waste shows no sign of curbing despite efforts to mitigate waste. This paper provides a broader framework and resource efficient development pathways for Qatar that suits local socioeconomic and cultural settings. Keywords: urban metabolism, urban sustainability, resource efficiency

Cities in this ever-changing and complex world are struggling between survival and prosperity, amid multiple challenges and divergent targets. From one hand, they are confronting escalating environmental issues such as the rising global warming, and from the other hand they are facing local urban problems that are deeply rooted in their growth and urbanization processes. The situation however seems more complicated. Countries are required to adopt global agendas such as SDGs and the New Urban Agenda that promote sustainable development while pursuing their promising visions and development plans towards a prosper economy and a decent quality of life. Nevertheless, the still dominating catastrophe of Covid-19 has added another challenging burden and obliged the whole world to seriously rethink a healthy approach for our life! This is a multifaceted puzzle that portraits a wicked phenomenon, and hence, brings the issue of ‘urban transformation’ to the forefront of this contemporary urban battle. Riyadh city, as its counterparts in the Gulf region, took advantage of the oil booming in the second half of the twentieth century to grow from a small town of compact traditional form and mud buildings to a sprawled modern metropolitan that strives to be a leading economic center. The rapid pace of urbanization that the city had undergone resulted in numerous urban problems, such as urban sprawl, traffic congestion and neighborhood degradation. The city now is undergoing huge social, cultural, administrative and economic changes guided by the Kingdom Vision 2030 that promotes extravagant projects and promising initiatives. The most recent but not least, is the City Strategy that aims at doubling Riyadh population! Taking this into account, along with global agendas and commitments, it’s inevitable to pose a critical question of how Riyadh is going to balance all that and transform its current urban situation to the most urged one; the sustainable, resilient and livable city? Based on Riyadh case, the paper is going to develop a framework for sustainable urban transformation (SUT). This will follow bringing insights from literature along with the analysis of existing context and practices of Riyadh city as well as a reflection of the targeted agendas to develop such a framework. In addition to the debates and gabs evoked in related literature, the importance of this framework arises from the fact that there are no clear implementation plans and sound measurable criteria for both global and national agendas. Another apparent and serious problem in these agendas resides in their approach to the existing context; they sound as if we are dealing with simple problems for new cities being established in vacant tracts! The reality is however totally different; we are addressing existing cities within overutilized limited boundaries and facing wicked problems. This makes balancing multiple agendas and initiatives even more complex and critical in a way that sheds light on the importance of the framework. Apart from the necessity of sustainable urban transformation for all cities due to evolving global trends, gulf cities are in a critical situation that oblige them to spark and adopt sustainable urban transformation owing to numerous unsustainable growth and practices. The SUT framework is expected to be useful for Gulf cities; as they share similar socio-cultural aspects, economic base, and urban problems.

There is an urgent need to address the global climate crisis. Urban areas are not only home to the majority of the world’s population. They also disproportionally contribute to the accelerating environmental decay, with the built environment and urban transportation sector constituting a significant part. Thus, a systemic change in how we plan, design, and manage urban areas is needed. We can observe such a system transition in Paris, a city that suffers from traffic congestion, air pollution, accidents, among many others. The concept of the 15-minute city represents the current urban development agenda. Underlying is the localisation, polycentricity, and creation of habitats—somewhat comparable with the Track’s title of Al-Waha, the oasis: A safe haven, a strategic centre, and a place to allow future generations to prosper. The accompanying visions, plans, and approaches strongly align with the global credo of co-creating sustainable urban futures. Many concepts and methods connect to this, ranging from Arnstein’s ladder of participation, Watson’s collaboration and co-production of knowledge, to digital approaches such as participatory GIS mapping or serious games created for decentralised co-creation of knowledge. Unfortunately, the multi-disciplinary and wide range can constitute a challenge for practitioners and policymakers to know what exists, which objectives can be met, and where strengths and weaknesses lie. Some of the various negative side-effects are the still widespread box-ticking participatory activities, the restricted reach of target groups, or practitioner's discontent with the contribution of co-creative practices. Thus, this paper attempts to compile and review existing frameworks, concepts, and methods from or contributing to the field of co-creating sustainable urban futures. Further, we will classify the collected materials and attempt to develop an initial taxonomy. The work is primarily following principles of a desk-based review, assembling its components based on theoretical foundations, with exemplary cases from the context of the sub-field of sustainable urban mobility futures. Complementary methodological elements are a bibliometric analysis and semi-structured expert interviews. Therefore, the paper aims at 1) providing an overview of what exists, 2) classifying its key components, and 3) proposing a simple framework for practical application in planning and policymaking as well as further extensions. It therefore can contribute to the Track’s goal of providing solutions and tools to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis by proposing a structured approach for co-creating place-based plans and policies for more resilient and sustainable urban futures. The paper is part of ongoing doctoral research on the topic of Urban Mobility Futures and rooted at the interface of transport and mobility research, urban studies, and design science.

Aleppo or “Halab,” is one of the world’s oldest inhabited urban areas; historically, it has been known for its multicultural community, as well as its extensive urban economic, social, cultural, and institutional capital (UN-HABITAT, 2014). Over the past ten years, the literature on Aleppo has predominantly focused on its severely damaged eastern half; which was previously under the control of the opposition. Little attention, however, has been paid to the other half of the city, the western half, which has acted as a haven for different groups of residents, both old and new. Aleppo’s current population is made up of three different groups: the remainees, who stayed in their homes during the war, the returnees, who returned to their homes after migration or displacement, and the internally displaced people (IDPs) who were forced to flee their homes. Aleppo’s residents have witnessed a significant deterioration in their livelihoods; the decline has been exacerbated by the massive destruction of the city’s main sectors, infrastructure, and services, secondly, by unprecedented international financial sanctions, and thirdly by the significant devaluation of the Syrian pound. The growing number of job-seekers, due to the massive influx of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and the continual resident return movements from 2017 onward, have created an enormous demand on employment opportunities. These problems raise the following questions: how can economic recovery be started in post-conflict Aleppo, which actors should be involved, and by which strategies can recovery take place. Post-conflict economies are generally characterized by unsound financial systems, high rates of unemployment, and inadequate infrastructure to meet increased demands. Even when the international community takes part in financing and implementing recovery plans, national actors must take the lead. The sporadic attempts of Aleppo’s residents to adapt to sudden changes by reviving their livelihoods through informal mechanisms of survival demonstrate great innovation, adaptation, and resilience. However, such informal economies if not addressed, may exacerbate social inequality and negatively impact economic recovery. Through that lens, this paper seeks to investigate means of enhancing Aleppo’s post-conflict economy from an urbanist’s perspective. It argues that urban resilience strategies could bolster economic recovery and sustain livelihoods. This can be achieved by rebuilding infrastructure and providing needed facilities as well as introducing appropriate and inclusive economic activities; which will, in return, help create opportunities for employment in intensive public works projects and provide support for local Aleppine enterprises. The paper will address urban deficiencies in Aleppo as perceived by three community groups (remainees, returnees and IDPs). It calls upon local and international actors and practitioners to work constructively together to focus on and support the priorities that Aleppine residents identify in order to set the foundation for recovery plans to help secure a better future for all inhabitants of this ancient city.

A cooperative planning approach to create a new urban oasis Since 2014, the Brussels Capital Region (BCR) identifies the former barrack in Ixelles as a big urban opportunity at the heart of the Region. The site, a 4 ha military barrack built in 1906 was until 2018 an enclosed place for the Belgian military police. After a first masterplanning process, the Regional Government selected the site as priority development pole. It concluded agreements with the federal state to acquire the place and with 2 major universities to develop a new sustainable district based on existing buildings. Since 2020, a comprehensive and flexible masterplan, sets limits to the land development combining regulatory components with strategic ones. A district that cares for the planet and unlocks people and mindsets A low carbon place to change minds and behaviors The planning process converts a rainproof site with soil pollution into a renewed place. The public developer studies the best way to realize, as planned, streets and places with swales. The masterplan pays attention to climate crisis and sets guidelines. For instance, in the following years, an upgrade of the existing buildings will provide high efficiency in materials and consumptions. New buildings for dwellings will also have green rooftops. Moreover, the whole site will be car-free which will incentivize the use of bike, public transit and the train station and therefore cut further the GHG emission. A resilient place thanks to numerous activities and people along the day The Usquare project will bring the concept of resilience in Brussels Region to another level. It will be a lighthouse project to foster a change in mindset in urban design. Indeed a linear vision planning-construction-use-demolition is not the planning track chosen. The reuse of existing buildings for new use, resilience thanks to numerous purpose, the place given to commons at a human scale are the key to this new urban deal. The region also aims to bring a citizen-centered approach to urban planning by opening USquare to the wider public. Indeed, a temporary occupation “See U” launches the re-opening of the site since 2019. Despite COVID-crisis, See-U continued to welcome neighbors, academics, consumers (food market, events) from the whole Region and beyond. Moreover, the masterplan secures this mixing of users and of uses. The student accommodation (about 500 rooms), the 120 public-operated dwellings will coexist with the already running or forthcoming academic amenities (fab-lab, researchers hostel, international student desk, interpretive center) retails and new public spaces. A district that tests the concepts of sustainability at a local scale At last, Usquare gives a place and life to some concepts of sustainability. For instance, studies and the ongoing construction prepare the spread of circular economy applied to construction. Indeed, as most of the buildings have a cultural and historical value, the developer just upgrades them. The few new buildings will upcycle the raw materials coming from demolished part or obsolete buildings. Thus the project not only reduces the footprint but also develops an example for the whole real-estate stakeholders. Food is also a main driver to implement Circular Economy and Essential Economy in Usquare. Organizations and / or community might grow vegetables on green rooftops, some areas within the public and open spaces. The food market and the handcrafted activities, especially in the renewed merry-go-round might process or direct sell this food to inhabitants. The Usquare project tests new ways to plan, new ways to study and build, new ways to use in Brussels in a more resilient, nature and people-friendly approach.

Description – Traditional communities within urban centers are a common feature in the Omani landscape, characterized by narrowing road widths, high density, and the close-knit social fabric of the generations of residents living within. With little to no published research on the subject of urbanism in Oman (BENKARI, 2017), international planning firms in charge of urban development across the Sultanate struggle to find ethnographic data on the many traditional settlements dotting the urban landscape that have deep ties to the land. Pilot investigations into community life in such settlements by academic institutions and non-profits have touched upon the complex ties of culture to place while this aspect remains underrepresented in the Urban planning process of the region. This case study elucidates the findings of ongoing urban ethnography and the opportunities in culturally integrated data as a means of environmental and economic resilience and prosperity. Background – The rapid urbanization of Oman since the 1970s ‘oil boom’ has meant much of the historic and organically developed settlements have undergone transformations beyond their control or involvement. “The right of decision-making was gradually shifted from the traditional community and tribe representatives to be conveyed to specialized ministries, executive directorates and foreign consultants” (Germeraad, 1990). Urban planning in Oman is currently at the cusp of a renewed future, with the advent of the new Sultan, HH Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, pushing forward strategic plans outlined in the Oman National Spatial Strategy to achieve the Oman Vision 2040. The need for a participatory planning process, highlighted as part of National Priorities, is yet to define performance indicators (Oman Vision 2040, 2020). Using Ethnographic methods of In-Depth interviews, Geo-referencing qualitative data through analysis and cluster mapping of qualitative data to categorize the ‘value systems’ embodied in natural environmental features, the case study is an on going exploration of the use of Socio-Spatial intelligence in community workshops as a design tool. The same aims to empower local communities and other stakeholders to prioritize conservation efforts and build up their own resilience strategies for their urban futures. The case study intends to share the preliminary outcomes of the Community Visualizer, a socio-spatial toolkit aimed to be a design tool for local communities of traditional settlements to represent their strengths and value systems. Through this, the purpose is to define the important cultural links to the environment and the value of strengthening them to ensure conservation and the deepening need for older/ traditional systems to inform the new. The work is considered as a pilot level process and not associated or representative of any development projects in the region.