Evaluation of sustainable water management strategies for urban renovation projects in Bogota, Colombia

Abstract

Resembling several cities in developing countries, intense rural-urban migration starting in the 1950’s led to an extremely rapid urban development in Bogota, the capital city of Colombia. Together with a poor urban water management, this has resulted in the worsening of water quality; channelization and interring of rivers; destruction of wetlands; and the growth of lowincome neighborhoods on river floodplains. Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) is defined as a design approach which integrates local natural hydrological cycles into urban planning and development projects. Private surfaces constitute a large share of Bogota’s land, making it necessary to include WSUD practices in private developments. This thesis, using the ET-CAN development project as case study, realizes a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the performance of two WSUD strategies: Green Roof and Rainwater Harvesting and Use Systems, for the specific characteristics of Bogota. The assessment has been based on water management criteria, together with additional environmental and financial aspects. Results evidence that the use of both strategies would be successful and complementary. A holistic analysis on the effects related to the implementation of both strategies results into optimized designs which, supported by sensible policy incentives, could reduce the impacts of decades of poor urban water management in Bogota.