The hydro-cultural dimension in Water-Sensitive Urban Design for Kozhikode, India

Abstract

Water-Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) identifies water sensitivity as a goal for cities to strive for and develop towards. Certain cities may face rapidly changing socioeconomic and urban dynamics, or lack of data and documentation, greater than those in which WSUD has been conceptualized. Landscape-informed, design-based fieldwork methods of walking, observing, describing and drawing can help to understand how hydrological systems are linked to local water cultures and practices. This shifts the definition of water sensitivity away from a universal ideal future scenario to one that is mutable and determined by local qualities. The case of Kozhikode, India, illustrates how fieldwork and its forms of representation, with an emphasis on the design processes that WSUD calls for to be operationalized, can shed light on urban hydro-cultural dimensions. These dimensions extend hydrological indicators by incorporating cultural insights to be integrated into WSUD, thereby enhancing the context specificity and appropriateness of the concept. As such, design methodologies and the hydro-cultural dimension offer valuable contributions to WSUD and can facilitate its adoption worldwide.