Approaching sustainable stormwater management : investigating the hydrologic cycle for sustainable landscape design

Sammanfattning: The global population is known to be increasing, by which urbanisation is expanding and demanding more space. Many issues occur through the spreading of impermeable surface in which some of the more pressuring compartments lie within hydrology, such as access to freshwater, spread of pollution and flooding. Our future presumes to bring climate changes more radical than we have experienced so far, presenting extremes of aridness and rainfall. As landscape architects take a large part of the urban landscape design, a large portion of urban issues can be approached by the same. For a landscape architect to create an enlightend design proposal regarding stormwater systems and management in an urban setting, knowledge of what make a water system sustainable and why is required. That is, what the relations between our urban design and the natural (urban) hydrologic cycle are. Solutions can be achieved in many ways, but the foundation has to be cast from the knowledge of interactions between the hydrologic cycle and an urban area, as well as the comparison and learning from the natural hydrologic cycle. Analyses has to be carried out along with pilot installations of projects with the aim of creating sustainable solutions. Therefore also evaluations of already implemented installations with a sustainable approach towards water management are of value to gain understanding of and learn how to think and approach similar problems as a landscape architect.