Sustainable Water Management in a Krakow Housing Complex from the Nineteen-Seventies in Comparison with a Model Bio-Morpheme Unit

Abstract

Cities grow through the addition of new housing structures, but the existing tissue is also modernized. Krakow, like any city with a historical origin, has typologically varied housing tissue. A large area of the city is occupied by multi-family panel-block housing estates which are being revitalised and the scope of this revitalization should include sustainable design elements. This paper determines the potential for implementing integrated water management, that utilizes rainwater in an existing basic urban unit that is a housing estate from the nineteen-seventies, located in Krakow (Poland), in conjunction with the Bio-Morpheme—the fractal reference model unit. The parameters of the Bio-Morpheme were established by earlier research as the optimum for a housing unit with regards to the circular economy and improving water use efficiency. The study covers the need to improve the quality of the housing environment, linked with the presence of natural elements, including a water reservoir, in the direct vicinity of the development. The analyses explored the potential to employ integrated water management with rainwater reuse in a basic urban unit (Krakow-Morpheme) and then compared the findings with the outcomes obtained by the proposed Bio-Morpheme complex. The results indicate that the potential to achieve a lower demand of water from the water supply system and to lower wastewater production were obtained, with a simultaneous opportunity to lay out an open water reservoir into the Krakow-Morpheme urban interior for improvement of the health value and well-being of inhabitants.