Integrating Nature-Based Solutions for urban stormwater management into existing urban fabrics

Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) have been proven to address urban stormwater challenges effectively while providing multiple benefits to the economy, society, and environment. Urban fabrics profoundly influence flood risk as the changes in urban form, land use, and building layout will affect the urban hydrological cycle, thereby altering precipitation and runoff. However, few studies look at the connection between NBSs and urban fabrics, which can contribute to urban stormwater management. This paper aims to categorize the general types of urban fabrics and consider NBSs as strategic interventions that can improve water-related issues and help to create a resilient neighborhood. This paper elaborates on some strategic approaches to integrate NBSs in existing urban fabrics at the neighborhood scale to optimize their response capacity according to the local conditions. The novelty lies in adopting a systemic vision to deliver a design toolkit that can be adapted to different conditions and with different typologies across the places and countries facing similar water-related challenges. In conclusion, this paper emphasizes the importance of understanding how different NBSs fit various urban fabric types, and future work is needed to provide assessment tools to evaluate the efficiency of different design scenarios.