Jack Ahern & Paul Brown 
Water Centric Sustainable Communities 
Planning, Retrofitting, and Building the Next Urban Environment

The current literature compartmentalizes the complex issue of water
and wastewater into its discrete components; technology, planning,
policy, construction, economics, etc. Considered from the
perspective of sustainability, however, water in the urban
environment must be approached as a single resource that can be
continuously reused and recycled. This book will be the first
to capture all of the current work on this idea in a single,
integrated, plan for designing the water-centric cities of the
future. From new construction to the retrofitting of existing
systems, this book presents the case for a new urban relationship
to water, one with a more sustainable connection to the
environment and the hydrological cycle. Through case studies
of successfully planned and built systems around the world, the
book will educate the reader about the need for a new approach to
urban water management, and make the case that these changes are
not only possible but imperative.

Table of Content

PREFACE.

I HISTORIC PARADIGMS OF URBAN WATER/STORMWATER/WASTEWATERMANAGEMENT AND DRIVERS FOR CHANGE.

I.1 Introduction.

I.2 Historic Paradigms: From Ancient Cities to the 20th Century.

I.3 Drivers for Change towards Sustainability.

I.4 The 21st Century and Beyond.

References.

II URBAN SUSTAINABILITY CONCEPTS.

II.1 The Vision of Sustainability.

II.2 The Sustainability Concept and Definitions.

II.3 Towards the Fifth Paradigm of Sustainability.

II.4 Cities of the Future–Water Centric Ecocities.

II.5 Ecocity/Ecovillage Concepts.

III PLANNING AND DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABLE AND RESILIENT CITIES:THEORIES, STRATEGIES, AND BEST PRACTICES FOR GREENINFRASTRUCTURE.

III.1 Introduction.

III.2 Ecosystem Services.

III.3 Planning for Resilient and Sustainable Cities.

III.4 Best Practices for Green Infrastructure.

III.5 Discussion.

References.

IV STORMWATER POLLUTION ABATEMENT AND FLOODCONTROL–STORMWATER AS A RESOURCE.

IV.1 Urban Stormwater–A Problem or an Asset?

IV.2 Best Management Practices to Control Urban Runoff for Reuse.

V WATER DEMAND AND CONSERVATION.

V.1 Water Use.

V.2 Water Conservation.

V.3 Substitute and Supplemental Water Sources.

VI WATER RECLAMATION AND REUSE.

VI.1 Introduction.

VI.2 Water Reclamation and Reuse.

VI.3 Water Quality Goals and Limits for Selecting Technologies.

VII TREATMENT AND RESOURCE RECOVERY UNIT PROCESSES.

VII.1 Brief Description of Traditional Water and Resource Reclamation Technologies.

VII.2 Sludge Handling and Resource Recovery.

VII.3 Nutrient Recovery.

VII.4 Membrane Filtration and Reverse Osmosis.

VII.5 Disinfection.

VII.6 Energy and GHG Emission Issues in Water Reclamation Plants.

VII.7 Evaluation and Selection of Decentralized Water Reclamation Technologies.

VIII ENERGY AND URBAN WATER SYSTEMS–TOWARDS NET ZEROCARBON FOOTPRINT.

VIII.1 Interconnection of Water and Energy.

VIII.2 Energy Conservation in Buildings and Ecoblocks.

VIII.3 Energy from Renewable Sources.

VIII.4 Energy from Used Water and Waste Organic Solids.

VIII.5 Direct Electric Energy Production from Biogas and Used Water.

VIII.6 Summary and a Look into the Future.

VIII.7 Overall Energy Outlook–Anticipating the Future.

IX RESTORING URBAN STREAMS.

IX.1 Introduction.

IX.2 Adverse Impacts of Urbanization to Be Remedied.

IX.3 Water Body Restoration in the Context of Future Water Centric (Eco)Cities.

IX.4 Summary and Conclusions.

X PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT OF SUSTAINABLE FUTURECOMMUNITIES.

X.1 Integrated Planning and Management.

X.2 Urban Planning.

X.3 Integrated Resources Management (IRM).

X.4 Clusters and Ecoblocks–Distributed Systems.

X.5 System Analysis and Modeling of Sustainable Cities.

X.6 Institutions.

XI ECOCITIES: EVALUATION AND SYNTHESIS.

XI.1 Introduction.

XI.2 Case Studies.

XI.3 Brief Summary.

References.

APPENDIX.

INDEX.

About the author

Vladimir Novotny is Professor at Northeastern University in
Boston, Massachusetts, and Emeritus Professor at Marquette
University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is also President of
Aqua Nova, LLC.

Jack Ahern is Professor of Landscape Architecture and
Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst,
Massachusetts.

Paul Brown is Executive Vice President at CDM in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is also Technical Director of the
Neysadurai Centre for Integrated Water Resources and Urban Planning
in Singapore.