Approaches to urban waterfront conservation have been much debated in recent decades. Early schemes focused on leisure and commercial exploitation, more recently greater attention has been paid to environmental and ecological conditions, historic preservation and human well-being. But how do we balance these competing interests and yet ensure sustainable change, preserve identity and yet allow for new development? And how do we involve local people? This book aims to provide some answers to these important questions. The book is divided into three parts: Part One is an overview for regeneration and awareness of historic waterfronts. Part Two argues for the sustainable reuse of important sites to preserve their special identity. Part Three shows the importance of introducing young researchers to the complexities of designing waterfronts for sustainable lifestyles.

Water is vital for life, and its availability has been a concern for mankind throughout the ages. Its presence has always been ascertained in a variety of ways and the development of human society everywhere is connected with various forms of water management. Man also needed to manage water to find protection from its dangers and the need for that is increasing. In the coming decades, the impact of climate change is expected to intensify floods and droughts, affect groundwater resources, raise sea levels, increase pollution and enhance the frequency and magnitude of disasters. Societies around the world are challenged to adapt to these threats to ensure water security, economic prosperity and environmental and cultural sustainability. This book deals with the heritage of water management and the use that was made of water, as well as the impact of water management on heritage. An example of the former may be an ancient irrigation system in the Filipines or in the Middle East that still functions today, while the latter may reflect the importance of maintaining groundwater levels for the preservation of organic remains on archaeological sites or of wooden piles underneath standing buildings. In either case the papers in this book reflect the dynamic nature of water, and hence the equally dynamic relation between water management and heritage. This publication follows up on a Heritage and Water conference in Amsterdam, the first of its kind. Its main purpose is to credibly present the importance and value of heritage and historical experience for water and sustainable development, and vice versa, present the importance of water management for the protection of heritage. It presents evolving insights and concepts about Water and about Heritage from a variety of disciplines, policy and public perspectives illustrated with cases studies and aims to connect decision makers with experts such as engineers, archaeologists, historians, geographers, ecologist and landscape architects

This Open Access book, building on research initiated by scholars from the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development (CHGD) and ICOMOS Netherlands, presents multidisciplinary research that connects water to heritage. Through twenty-one chapters it explores landscapes, cities, engineering structures and buildings from around the world. It describes how people have actively shaped the course, form and function of water for human settlement and the development of civilizations, establishing socio-economic structures, policies and cultures; a rich world of narratives, laws and practices; and an extensive network of infrastructure, buildings and urban form. The book is organized in five thematic sections that link practices of the past to the design of the present and visions of the future: part I discusses drinking water management; part II addresses water use in agriculture; part III explores water management for land reclamation and defense; part IV examines river and coastal planning; and part V focuses on port cities and waterfront regeneration. Today, the many complex systems of the past are necessarily the basis for new systems that both preserve the past and manage water today: policy makers and designers can work together to recognize and build on the traditional knowledge and skills that old structure embody. This book argues that there is a need for a common agenda and an integrated policy that addresses the preservation, transformation and adaptive reuse of historic water-related structures. Throughout, it imagines how such efforts will help us develop sustainable futures for cities, landscapes and bodies of water.

Waterfronts Revisited addresses the historical evolution of the relationship between port and city and re-examines waterfront development by looking at the urban territory and historical city in their complexity and entirety. By identifying guiding values, urban patterns and typologies, and local needs and experiences, cities can break the isolation of the harbor by reconnecting it to the urban structure; its functions, spaces and forms. Using the UNESCO recommendation for the "Historic Urban Landscape" as the guiding concept and a tool for managing urban preservation and change, this collection of essays illustrates solutions to issues of globalisation, commercialization of space and commoditisation of culture in waterfront development. Through sixteen selected case studies, Editors Heleni Porfyriou and Marichela Sepe offer planners and urban designers a broad spectrum of alternative solutions to waterfront regeneration interventions and redevelopments, addressing sustainability, regional cultural diversity, and the debate between conservation and transformation.

This book explores potentialities and emerging issues to strategies and waterside planning and design, developing research results and detailed cases of interest in response to city change, to promote sustainable development in a variety of ways. It seeks to include some key waterfront matters in linking new spatial patterns to social dynamics and climate change, for future practice. The book is structuring into two parts: The first one – ‘Advancing Riverfront Transformation’ – examines proposals on urban waterfronts and relations between urban spaces and social dynamics to revitalise and re-appropriate urban environment with sustainable design solutions. The second one – ‘Outlining Blue-Green Opportunities’ – develops proposals on waterfront urban spaces and places with promotion of sociability and enjoyment, integrating cultural and economic values, health and wellbeing.

In port cities around the world, waterfront development projects have been hailed both as spaces of promise and as crucial territorial wedges in twenty-first century competitive growth strategies. Frequently, these mega-projects have been intended to transform derelict docklands into communities of hope with sustainable urban economies—economies intended to both compete in and support globally-networked hierarchies of cities. This collection engages with major theoretical debates and empirical findings on the ways waterfronts transform and have been transformed in port-cities in North and South America, Europe, the Caribbean. It is organized around the themes of fixities (built environments, institutional and regulatory structures, and cultural practices) and flows (information, labor, capital, energy, and knowledge), which are key categories for understanding processes of change. By focusing on these fixities and flows, the contributors to this volume develop new insights for understanding both historical and current cases of change on urban waterfronts, those special areas of cities where land and water meet. As such, it will be a valuable resource for teaching faculty, students, and any audience interested in a broad scope of issues within the field of urban studies.