The Urban Water Plan
Case Study
The Urban Water Plan
Location – New Orleans, LA
Summary – The city of New Orleans assessed the key elements of flooding, subsidence, and wasted water throughout the city district and targeted strategic locations to retain stormwater, recharge groundwater, and incorporate “natural elements and processes into the operation of an integrated living water system”.
Key Vulnerabilities - Previous approaches to draining stormwater within New Orleans led to flooding, subsidence, and wasted water. Flooding - The catch basins, pipes, and pumps within the city could not handle the amount of rain that was improperly diverted from both the street and surrounding properties. This then damaged the streets and properties near flooded drainage systems and amassed
Before
After
arge quantities of insurance claims as well as increased flood insurance rates. Subsidence - The drainage systems also pumped from low water tables and caused the land to sink, which led to broken infrastructure and building foundations. Wasted Water - The unfriendly and typically overgrown drainage canals that this water all diverted to was used purely for drainage and spatially divided communities. When the water did not flow through the canals, it pooled, becoming stagnant, and mostly collected trash.
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About the Plan – The city had a 100 year hurricane protection system, but was overcome by devastating storms that are predicted to be more intense in the future. Subsidence became an issue since the current drainage systems simply diverted stormwater as quickly as possible, leading to less stable
grounds and fractured infrastructure. When the area took on large rainfall events, the pipe systems, pumps, and canals were not able to move the water away from impervious surfaces quickly enough and led to flash flooding in numerous areas as well as sinking soils. The Urban Water Plan sought to implement smart stormwater and groundwater management practices in order to resolve these issues and enrich the public life by attracting people to these installations and turning the issue into an asset.
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The design group focussed on three major principles for this plan which were water, ecology, and people. Water - The key factor here was to “Slow and Store” the water when it rained. By withholding and slowing the runoff, designed locations were able to manage the water more easily through infiltration. This allowed less frequent use of the pumps and led to balanced groundwater, better water quality, and a healthier regional ecology. Ecology - The natural environment has always been the best at processing water by
filtering it, storing it, and using it to grow, so the Urban Water Plan decided to incorporate it into its infrastructure. This brought the regional landscape back into the city and its people as an asset for everyone to enjoy. People - Neighborhoods and cultures needed to work together for this plan to become a success and continue to provide for people from a range of different interests and goals. This design made sure that the surrounding communities got involved in the decision-making process so that the end product was valuable to all people within the city.
Today - Waggonner & Ball Architects continues to design for pleasing water management in New Orleans where they are located, and recently released a plan for the “Mirabeau Water Garden” that they hope will influence a “more positive relationship between the community and its water”. An article about this design can be viewed at this link.
