Urban Planning and Water Resources: Integrated regeneration strategies for contemporary territories

The alteration of balances in urban microclimates and hydrological systems is directly linked to the problem of the soil sealing, with consequences reflected in global climatic imbalances. The scientific debate on this issue is focused on existing strategies and techniques for urban resilience and regeneration, with a view to the re-naturalization of territories that also entails a paradigm shift from Grey Infrastructures towards Green and Blue Infrastructures. Within the European ambit, the legal framework furthers the promotion of plans, programs and interventions that conceive the water resource as an opportunity for urban development rather than only as a risk factor. In this direction, it is possible to refer to some good experiences that field interconnected strategies with the aim of managing interventions in a systemic perspective, to achieve global results and facilitate the participation of the social actors involved. In this context, Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) are fundamental tools that enable the implementation of these regenerative strategies and their sustainability over time. These tools restore the permeable capacity of the soil while providing support to ensure the multiplicity of benefits that Ecosystem Services bring, converting the current linear management of resources into a circular management. Through the analysis of two emblematic case studies in the European scene as the cases of London (London Sustainable Drainage Action Plan) and Rotterdam (Waterplan2 Rotterdam), the paper, starting from an overview of the state of the art, research and experimentation, focuses on the multilevel functionality of these plans, in terms of vision and operability.