Designing with Ecosystem Modelling: The Sponge District Application in İzmir, Turkey

Abstract

Climate change is threatening coastal cities affected by multiple hazards worldwide. Due to the increase in extreme weather events and the low capacity of cities to adapt to these odds, losses, exposure, and fatalities arise with the occurred events. Besides, traditional hazard mapping and risk planning techniques often fall behind when facing a climate crisis since extreme changes in quantity, frequency, and distribution of meteorological phenomena are observed. Specific and localized flood vulnerability mitigation strategies need to be developed, particularly for settlements on coastal and sloppy areas with a high risk of stream accumulation during rainfall days. This paper uses the urban flood risk mitigation of Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) generated within the Natural Capital Project to determine İzmir’s cloudburst vulnerability level. The city has experienced several cloudbursts in the last couple of months which inundated densely populated areas. The soil’s hydrologic conductibility and the land use/land cover (LULC) map were required as main inputs. The LULC map was produced on the basis of surface imperviousness. The model calculates the run-off volume and how much is retained by soil and vegetation. Outputs were used to concretely apply the sponge district concept while designing performance-based ecosystem solutions. In the light of the findings, the new performance-based design demonstrated how digital ecosystem modelling could support the urban design decision-making process.