The Pearl River Delta region, where the author of this project grew up, has been a source of inspiration due to the devastating impacts of natural disasters such as flooding, hurricanes, and storms on the limited freshwater resources in the area. Water is a crucial necessity for the inhabitants of the PRD, but the complexity of the water system, characterized by its structure, dynamics, and human activities, presents a formidable challenge. Despite the region's abundant rainfall and hydrological conditions, six cities in the PRD experience water poverty as a result of limited resources.
The existing centralized freshwater supply infrastructure, which relies on transporting water from rural areas to urban clusters, is unsustainable in the face of flooding, sea level rise, and salt tide intrusion. To address this issue, a resilience design framework based on the landscape as a sytem theory is necessary to promote sustainable ecosystem and urban growth. The landscape can serve as a foundation for such a system and provide a means of integrating design into contemporary urban development and transformation. By considering the landscape as a system, the freshwater supply system can act as a rechargeable battery, storing water in potential areas during wet seasons and during times of drought or salt intrusion.
The densely populated Pearl River Delta offers a significant potential for freshwater storage through its urban landscape. This project aims to explore the resilience design framework for freshwater managed recharge, and role of design in incorporating current urban development and transformation activities through urban landscape infrastructure. Through field studies, mapping, historical analysis, and flowscape analysis, the author will design a sustainable landscape system that facilitates interaction among diverse subsystems and addresses the challenge of storing and utilizing freshwater resources in high-density cities.