Sustainable Water management scheme for the Negin Safari Park

Abstract

Though the perils of climate change on our environment are common knowledge its mitigation through informed planning is widely absent. This research project aims to aid the architect in developing a design which has a comparatively lower ecological footprint and focuses on opportunistic utilization of renewable resources readily available in the context. Within the preview of this thesis the potential of developing a sustainable water management scheme for the Negin safari park located in the Fars province of Iran is studied.
Iran is facing a situation of drought for the past few years which has had an adverse impact on the region. One of the communities to have been affected by this are the Qashqai nomads of Iran, who have been threatened with deprivation of their freedom due to the economic woes brought by drought. The Negin safari park being developed in the region aims to uplift this community and provide a platform for them to be able to share their work and culture. However, the influx of tourists due to the development of a Safari park further increases the stress on the depleting water resources in the region. In turn development of water technologies facilitating the reclamation of waste water, conservation of water and mitigation of extreme withdrawal of resources needs to be studied and implemented.
In order to create a design which consciously uses the water resources and facilitates re-use of waste water, different water technologies have been identified and studied to understand its feasibility for installation in Iran. Once the ideal technologies were identified, a water management scheme was developed which facilitated water autarky in the park. Further on the relation of the built form with the technology was explored. The technologies which were shortlisted entailed requirements which had a direct impact on the design of the built form and its spatial organization. The final product of this thesis entails a customized set of design guidelines for the development of a Safari park in Iran. These guidelines have stemmed from the optimization strategy used in designing the Negin safari park with the intended water technologies.
Adhering to the concept of developing the park as an eco-tourist destination attention has been placed to propose sustainable technologies with lower energy requirement and maintenance. It is believed that through implementation of these technologies the added stress on water demand caused by the erection of a Negin safari park in a drought hit region can be reduced. The implementation of these technologies can also further help in educating the local community and lead to encouragement of widespread implementation of these systems. This graduation project is an attempt to develop an informed relation between resource flows and spatial design in order to enable an uninterrupted functioning of the Safari park leading to prosperity of the region and its people.