Kristina N. Katich

時間：2016-07-05 來源：水世界-中國城鎮水網 作者：

Interview Outline

Kristina N. Katich

Urban Development Specialist,

East Asia Regional Department (EARD)

Asian Development Bank

Field of Study: Climate adaptation and cities

Interview theme: Urban Storm Water Management

(1st left：Kristina N. Katich）

1. When did you start your study in urban storm water management? There might be something or some technology that impressed you very much in your career, could you share your story with us?

Interestingly, I came to work on urban storm water management out of an interest in holistic planning and social equity. Initially, I trained as an architect, as I felt that architecture had inherent social and utilitarian values – the function to create beautiful, functional, and safe spaces. As my career developed, I moved on to urban and environmental planning and management, which ultimately led the issues of disaster risk and urban storm water management. Personally, I am less of a fan of hard engineering approaches to prevent flooding; channelization, culverts, and dams tend to disrupt the natural processes which are required to maintain the urban environment. These techniques pass the flooding risks to downstream communities which may have even less capacity to absorb and cope with large amounts of fast-moving water. Rather, I prefer to use soft-engineering approaches as often as possible, as environmental and landscape-based flood management can greatly benefit cities in a variety of ways. While I have always preferred nature-based solutions, I was particularly impressed with the practice of, “daylighting,” or the opening up of natural urban waterways which were previously paved over or culverted during the 1970s and 1980s. My graduate school thesis focused on climate adaptation in cities, and through this, I learned of the Cheong Gye Cheon Project in Seoul. In addition to helping manage urban storm water, the project also revitalized the heart of the city through the creation of a public park. Despite initial resistance from area residents, the project has greatly improved not only their living environment but also increased local land-values. The project has gained international recognition and is considered a best-practice which is now being adopted in other countries, such as the United States.

Source: http://inhabitat.com/how-the-cheonggyecheon-river-urban-design-restored-the-green-heart-of-seoul/

(many additional photos available on this website)

2. In your point of view, what’s the finalpurpose of urban storm water management? In order to accomplish this, what parties should be involved and what effort should be devoted?

The final purpose of urban storm water management is to ensure a safe and secure urban environment for all residents – rich, poor, young, old – everyone. It is important that urban development respects and considers its symbiosis with the natural environment. Rapid urban development in many Asian cities has neglected the impact that poorly planned infrastructure has had on the natural environment, and overtime, this neglect is challenging the sustainability of cities. The paving of roads and culverting of urban rivers means that less and less rain water can be reabsorbed in urban areas. As I mentioned before, this increases flood risks downstream, but also threatens the urban water supply and undermines the foundations of buildings through land subsidence;cities around the world, such as Mexico City, Jakarta, and Beijing, are slowly sinking because paved roads prevent water from recharging urban aquifers.

In many cases, poorly planned urbanization and stormwater management practices create an unnecessary burden of poorer communities which cannot absorb the possible physical and economic impacts of floods. For example, land and construction prices may be cheaper in flood- or land slide-prone areas, leading them to live in these areas. In the case of flooding, not only could they lose their home and belongings, but their safety and livelihood could be at risk.

There are three huge obstacles to urban storm water management. One is that flooding does not recognize municipal boundaries, and upstream activities hugely affect downstream communities. This can make it difficult for cities to coordinate with each other and other levels of government on urban development and storm water management infrastructure and practices. Additionally, this can make financing storm water management investments very difficult at the municipal level. Secondly, even within cities, there is often poor coordination between government agencies. The individual activities of many agencies – including environmental protection, emergency management, solid waste management, transport, urban development, and others – can affect a city’s ability cope with flood risk. There are often unclear and overlapping responsibilities as well as a lack of understanding and information sharing between agencies. Finally, there is a lack of political will to improve a problem which isn’t visible every day. Unless a city has recently experienced significant urban floods, urban storm water management is usually low on a government’s agenda – particularly in countries or cities with short political cycles. Many governments prefer to build infrastructure that is visible to its citizens 365 days a year; urban storm water infrastructure is largely underground and its construction can be problematic for traffic and other daily activities of city residents. Unless there is a large rainfall or river flooding event, the investment in hard urban storm water infrastructure will go unnoticed and unappreciated. Urban storm water management requires coordination, financing, comprehensive planning, and a vision at creating a safe and environmentally-friendly urban environment.

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