Sustainable development projects require careful balancing of economic interests and ecological needs. The case of Skikda, a city in northeast Algeria, located on the Mediterranean coast, illustrates the challenges connected with such a development. The ancient city coexists with a young hydrocarbon port and industrial pole that serves as a transfer hub in the flow of petroleum between hinterland and sea. The installation of the port and petrochemical refining plants on the banks of the estuary of the Safsaf River presents many challenges to local citizens and the ecosystem, including pollution of the water system, groundwater, and river water, and damage to the area's ancient heritage. This study argues that we need new and less polluting forms of intermodality between hinterland and seaport to make urban mobility more sustainable. It asks whether and how the existing rivers and wadis (river channels that are dry except during rainy periods) can be transformed into artificial canals for river navigation to improve the transport fluidity and sustainability of Skikda. To answer this question, the study adopts a prospective approach using the MICMAC scenario method. This approach entails, first, presenting and evaluating the potentialities of the existing rivers of Skikda using QGIS, and second, discussing and proposing scenarios for transforming these rivers into urban waterways, that is, artificial canals for inland navigation. The prospect of inland waterway transport in Skikda may be a radical scenario, yet, despite its hydraulic capacity and advantages, this system is not receiving attention in Algeria. We suggest that water transport can breathe sustainable blue life into a vulnerable industrial port city, transforming its challenges into opportunities.
Large cities are widely recognized as major contributors to climate change due to their high energy demand and heavy reliance on on-road transportation. Urban mobility today brings additional concerns about predicted demands arising from people's necessities of living in cities and their respective needs to travel in different forms, either for personal or professional purposes. This study based on a literature review and case studies analysis proposes a framework to support the implementation of Sustainable Inland Waterway Transportation Systems as an alternative to road transport. The proposed framework is tested in São Paulo City (Brazil). In the implementation of a sustainable inland waterway transportation system, the following factors were identified as strategic: user characteristics and behaviour, operators' characteristics and behaviour, investment in infrastructures, regulation and taxation, and Government. Infrastructure and strategic planning are areas that deserve further investigation. Research could focus on developing strategies for efficient routing, taking into account various potential limitations, water navigability, vessel capacity, traffic management, and transshipment locations. Intermodality between different transport modes is a crucial area that needs to be addressed to ensure full integration into the multimodal network. Investigating connectivity and information sharing systems between modes would enhance the overall efficiency and attractiveness of waterway transportation in the city's ecosystem.
Keywords: transportation, waterway, framework, sustainability, case studies.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) has the world's longest inland waterway system. Despite the system's potential and the government's policies encouraging its development, inland waterway transport (IWT) has not been developed as much as other transport modes. This publication examines the constraints in developing IWT based on a study in the PRC's Hunan province. Six major challenges threatening the viability of IWT and its integration into the whole logistics chain have been identified. The analyses and case study lead to recommendations that are relevant not just to the PRC but also to other developing countries.
The northern ("lower") section of the Vistula is on the route of two international waterways - E70 and E40. However, the current condition of the riverbed prevents larger vessels from passing through. Plans for the waterway date back to the beginning of the 20th century. Following Poland's ratification of the European Agreement on Main Inland Waterways of International Importance in 2017, the general concept has been transformed into more concrete studies and has found its place in the national development policy. The scientific and political discourse primarily addresses the potential benefits of river regulation in the field of transport and energy. Against this background, studies on the impact of investments on the natural environment are published less frequently. Meanwhile, the Vistula has for centuries influenced the formation of a unique cultural landscape, which will be severely transformed if the river is regulated. On the other hand, insufficient transit depths of the waterway result in the loss of the function of the historic transport corridor, which also changes the character of parts of the area dependent on the river - in particular, the riverside areas of towns. This article aims to indicate the need for a qualitative landscape assessment of how the impact of investments is assessed and the best solution chosen. Using the assumptions of the historic urban landscape, the author analyses the potential impact of the planned investment in the lower Vistula on the surrounding cultural landscape. The potential scope for change in two dimensions is indicated at the scale of the lower Vistula and the individual towns. The possible impact of the investments on the panoramas is illustrated for selected cases.
This essay by historian Matthew Klingle compares the work of Carleton Watkins, a pioneer in early photography, and Michael Kolster, a contemporary photographer. Like his predecessor, Kolster uses the wet-plate photographic process to create ambrotypes: handmade images made on glass. Watkins's images, made in the late-nineteenth century, helped to sell scenic, monumental California and the West to the nation. In contrast, Kolster's photographs of the Los Angeles River, a degraded and often ignored urban waterway, suggest how older photographic techniques might be employed to create new aesthetics of place freed from the confines of purity and beauty.
Due to increasing population and expansion of cities, urban planning issues are becoming more important worldwide. It is realized that biological methodologies ought to be coordinated into urban arranging activities. Particularly in European cities, creating greenways and green corridors is a very recent phenomenon. The advancement of green space along urban waterways could moderate urban warmth island impacts, improve the physical and mental prosperity of city occupants, improve flood resilience and could also sustain biodiversity. The Pedieos River is the longest river in Cyprus. Like most of streams on the island, it is a non-enduring waterway, of fleeting nature that for the most part streams during the blustery winter months or after overwhelming precipitation occasions. A literature review was undertaken to discover the importance of rivers within the urbanized areas. It is known that the Pedieos River is firmly connected to the historical backdrop of Nicosia as it is one reason for the city's presence at the site. The increase of impermeable areas as a result of urbanization is also one of the main causes for flooding in recent years. In this research, the current situation of the river was investigated and its possible rehabilitation discussed for more sustainable city. The aim of this study is to recommend a feasible proposition by examining green territory zones and reason green passages along the Pedieos River so as to improve the living condition of Nicosia city.
Keywords: Greenway, river, Pedieos River, urban planning
Since the 2010s, strategic local policies concerning urban resilience and biodiversity support are being promoted, focusing on ways to renew urban water management. Research points however, to the low effectiveness or efficiency of such urban environmental policies, and questions the need of renewing the relationship between the environment and the city. Other researches put forward that a major change occurs in urban rainwater management since the 1970s. We follow the idea of an ecological and climatic transformation of rainwater and urban rivers management since the 1970s. Three hypotheses underlie this thesis. First, based on ecological and climatic principles, a technical management doctrine transforms the urban water engineering. Secondly, urban hydrology has experienced a shift, carried out by new techniques. Thirdly, this technical doctrine has extended to urban planning and design. We tested the hypotheses by the study of a corpus of guides and technical documents produced between 1970 and 2015; of an inventory of techniques; and of five case-studies, completed with interviews with professionals. The study found that ecology is present, but as an auxiliary to sanitation principles. An ecological ethic is incorporated into technical doctrines : the use of living organisms in engineering is partially based their supposed superior effectiveness in spatial planning. The hydrology of the Paris metropolitan area seems to be marginally evolving. Urban neighborhoods are not transformed by water management : urban water spaces and facilities remain tenuous, discontinuous, underlying and preceded by other logics of spatial organization. ; Dans les années 2010, des politiques urbaines de résilience et de soutien de la biodiversité sont mises en avant, avec pour cœur une gestion renouvelée de l'eau en ville. Pourtant, les travaux de recherche font plutôt état d'une faible efficacité des politiques urbaines environnementales, et interrogent la désirabilité d'une réforme du rapport entre environnement et ville. Les ...
Since the 2010s, strategic local policies concerning urban resilience and biodiversity support are being promoted, focusing on ways to renew urban water management. Research points however, to the low effectiveness or efficiency of such urban environmental policies, and questions the need of renewing the relationship between the environment and the city. Other researches put forward that a major change occurs in urban rainwater management since the 1970s. We follow the idea of an ecological and climatic transformation of rainwater and urban rivers management since the 1970s. Three hypotheses underlie this thesis. First, based on ecological and climatic principles, a technical management doctrine transforms the urban water engineering. Secondly, urban hydrology has experienced a shift, carried out by new techniques. Thirdly, this technical doctrine has extended to urban planning and design. We tested the hypotheses by the study of a corpus of guides and technical documents produced between 1970 and 2015; of an inventory of techniques; and of five case-studies, completed with interviews with professionals. The study found that ecology is present, but as an auxiliary to sanitation principles. An ecological ethic is incorporated into technical doctrines : the use of living organisms in engineering is partially based their supposed superior effectiveness in spatial planning. The hydrology of the Paris metropolitan area seems to be marginally evolving. Urban neighborhoods are not transformed by water management : urban water spaces and facilities remain tenuous, discontinuous, underlying and preceded by other logics of spatial organization. ; Dans les années 2010, des politiques urbaines de résilience et de soutien de la biodiversité sont mises en avant, avec pour cœur une gestion renouvelée de l'eau en ville. Pourtant, les travaux de recherche font plutôt état d'une faible efficacité des politiques urbaines environnementales, et interrogent la désirabilité d'une réforme du rapport entre environnement et ville. Les ...
Since the 2010s, strategic local policies concerning urban resilience and biodiversity support are being promoted, focusing on ways to renew urban water management. Research points however, to the low effectiveness or efficiency of such urban environmental policies, and questions the need of renewing the relationship between the environment and the city. Other researches put forward that a major change occurs in urban rainwater management since the 1970s. We follow the idea of an ecological and climatic transformation of rainwater and urban rivers management since the 1970s. Three hypotheses underlie this thesis. First, based on ecological and climatic principles, a technical management doctrine transforms the urban water engineering. Secondly, urban hydrology has experienced a shift, carried out by new techniques. Thirdly, this technical doctrine has extended to urban planning and design. We tested the hypotheses by the study of a corpus of guides and technical documents produced between 1970 and 2015; of an inventory of techniques; and of five case-studies, completed with interviews with professionals. The study found that ecology is present, but as an auxiliary to sanitation principles. An ecological ethic is incorporated into technical doctrines : the use of living organisms in engineering is partially based their supposed superior effectiveness in spatial planning. The hydrology of the Paris metropolitan area seems to be marginally evolving. Urban neighborhoods are not transformed by water management : urban water spaces and facilities remain tenuous, discontinuous, underlying and preceded by other logics of spatial organization. ; Dans les années 2010, des politiques urbaines de résilience et de soutien de la biodiversité sont mises en avant, avec pour cœur une gestion renouvelée de l'eau en ville. Pourtant, les travaux de recherche font plutôt état d'une faible efficacité des politiques urbaines environnementales, et interrogent la désirabilité d'une réforme du rapport entre environnement et ville. Les ...
Managing urban stormwater is problematical with its diffuse sources and qualities of runoff that cross multiple administrative boundaries and involve different levels of government. Defined by these characteristics and others, urban stormwater is a 'wicked' problem that may cause policy conflict and technical disputes among the various governmental actors. This thesis examines the implementation context of urban stormwater management in Australia and, using an embedded case study in metropolitan Melbourne, analyses the complexity of intergovernmental relations to achieve improved stormwater quality flowing into the receiving waters of the city. In this case, state and local governments are jointly responsible for managing Melbourne's greatest source of waterway pollution, the former led by a regional drainage manager along with thirty-eight municipalities across the metropolitan region. Implementation phenomena within the embedded case are examined from a meta-conceptual perspective through drawing from the literature across the community, program, inter-organisational, and intra-organisational domains. The mixed methods data collection and analysis approach illuminates the interconnectedness of the phenomena across and within these domains. The results reveal patterns of intergovernmental conflict and cooperation that are largely governed by the commitment and capacity of the municipal organisations. Such varying municipal disposition to urban stormwater quality improvement is represented across a range of geographical and socio-political contexts, marked by differences in wealth and education, and the presence or absence of perceptible environmental assets. Moreover, professional norms and experiences largely located within the municipal departments of statutory planning, engineering, and environmental management were also found to influence the degree of local government commitment to urban stormwater management. Notwithstanding the influences of management leadership and municipal priorities, dominant professions shaped the intergovernmental interactions and stormwater quality outcomes at the municipal level. The resulting web of relationships between these variables, amid the different loci and layers of the phenomena investigated, highlights the wickedness of the problem for urban stormwater managers in Australia. Indeed, the collective commitment and participation of local government to ameliorate urban stormwater quality is necessary for improved water quality conditions in the receiving waters, while in practice it is disproportionate. This PhD research, enabled by interactions with policy experts and informed by the policy sciences and public administration literature, developed a conceptual model of intergovernmental environmental program design and evaluation to resolve the problem. The model's program design heuristic identifies mixed policy instruments and implementation styles that are sympathetic to the complexity of the intergovernmental and contextual relationships. These are drawn together within a multi-layered, multi-modal governance framework in order to compare future policy and program designs between idealised and context-dependent forms of governance. The findings of this research, in depicting the complexity of intergovernmental implementation of an environmental program, contribute to our understanding of the dynamics which necessitate the adoption of a portfolio of implementation vehicles by program managers and implementation agents.
In the past decades, international port cities have been strongly affected by global transformation processes, dramatically altering life and work around the ports, the built environment and public imagery of urban waterfronts. Based on recent theories of city-port development, the ethnographic studies in this volume focus on local stakeholders' perceptions and strategies in port cities in Europe and Latin America. This book covers a wide variety of urban fields, from traditional dockland communities, inland waterway sailors and new forms of migration and exile, to active agents of urban transformation.
Cover Port Cities as Areas of Transition -- CONTENTS -- Port Cities as Areas of Transition - Comparative Ethnographic Research -- Transformation Processes on Waterfronts in Seaport Cities - Causes and Trends between Divergence and Convergence -- Notions on Community, Locality and Changing Space in the Dublin Docklands -- Old Town and Dock Area: Structural Changes in Ciudad Vieja of Montevideo -- A View from Port to City: Inland Waterway Sailors and City-Port Transformation in Hamburg -- "Gateway" City and Nexus Between Two Continents: The Port City of Algeciras -- Belém, "Gate of Amazonia" - Port and River as Crossroads -- Contesting Nodes of Migration and Trade in Public Space: Thessaloniki's Bazaar Economy -- Varna, Capital of the Sea: History, Image, and Waterfront Development -- "Istanbul Modern" - Urban Images, Planning Processes and the Production of Space in Istanbul's Port Area -- Authors.
Slovakia's transport sector has not suffered from the dramatic reductions in demand and neglect of its infrastructure that have afflicted many of its neighbors. However, current under-maintenance is eating away at the stock of transport infrastructure and is unsustainable in anything more than the very short term. In addition, despite good intentions, progress on commercializing its transport operations has not progressed far enough to put them in a strong position to confront the pressures they will face when Slovakia enters the European Union, hopefully at the beginning of 2004. There is now a short window of opportunity to make good on deferred maintenance, establish a more sustainable maintenance regime and make good on the previous good intentions for commercialization. The opportunity exists also for the institutional structure of the sector to be revised so as to better reflect the interests of transport users, reform the way that infrastructure is financed and to systematically eliminate the remaining regulatory protections given to existing operators. The Strategy presented here shows how these objectives can best be reached, and how the World Bank can help bring them about. If the Strategy is implemented, action will have been taken before there is a problem and order will have been introduced before disorder takes over.
Shipping canals have supported maritime traffic and port development for many centuries. Radical transformations of these shipping landscapes through land reclamation, diking, and canalization were celebrated as Herculean works of progress and modernity. Today, shipping canals are the sites of increasing tension between economic growth and associated infrastructural interventions focused on the quality, sustainability, and resilience of natural systems and spatial settlement patterns. Shifting approaches to land/water relations must now be understood in longer political histories in which pre-existing alliances influence changes in infrastructure planning. On the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the New Waterway (Nieuwe Waterweg), the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus universities PortCityFutures Center hosted an international symposium in October 2022 to explore the past, present, and future of this channel that links Rotterdam to the North Sea. Symposium participants addressed issues of shipping, dredging, and planning within in the Dutch delta, and linked them to contemporary debates on the environmental, spatial, and societal conditions of shipping canals internationally. The thematic issue builds on symposium conversations, and highlights the importance of spatial, economic, and political linkages in port and urban development. These spatial approaches contribute to more dynamic, responsive strategies for shipping canals through water management and planning.