Water in the city: An environmental and bioclimatic approach

Water constitutes an important and valuable natural resource, which should be preserved at any cost. In the city, water-related issues should be approached through two different angles: the environmental, which concerns the protection of water as a natural resource, and the bioclimatic, which includes the integration of water elements to the urban open spaces as a means to improve microclimatic conditions. In a city, the environmental issues, which are connected to water, are its increased consumption, the streams that are integrated in the urban fabric, and the floods. Architects, planners and designers can, to some extent, influence all these issues, through careful design, as well as through the selection of water-permeable materials for the surfaces of urban open spaces and building flat roofs. On the other hand, the physical and thermal properties of water, as well as its ability to draw heat from the environment during its evaporation, make it a suitable element for the bioclimatic design of urban open spaces. In cities with warm Mediterranean climate, water elements such as ponds with and without jet fountains, micronizers integrated in vegetation, artificial fogging systems, passive downdraught evaporative cooling (PDEC) towers, vertical surfaces of water and jet fountains incorporated in urban pavements, can contribute to the improvement of microclimatic and thermal comfort conditions.

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