Assistant Prof, Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran.
Abstract
Current urban development practices has had negative impacts on urban water resources and eology and has made urban environments far from the objectives of sustainable development. In hydrology realm, studies show that traditional stormwater management in cities has had negative effects such as increased volume of urban run off and increased peak flows. Also, such traditional urban water management, by removing remnant vegetation and increase of hard surfaces, has largely reduced urban green spaces per capita. The concept of Water Sesnitive Urban Design (WSUD) in recen decades has been developed in some countries such as Australia. This concept as a susistainable strategy for urban development, has made promises on solving many problems caused by traditional water cycle management such as increasing urban hard surfaces and decreasing urban green spaces. This paper will descrie and discuss the concept of water sensive urban design and it’s objectives and will compare it with similar traditional concepts related to urban water cycle management. It is hope that introducing the subject in this paper, can help on investigation of the development of this concept for sustainable urban development in Iran.
