The impact of green infrastructure rainwater harvesting on sustainable urbanism: Case study in Alexandria, Egypt

Abstract

Green infrastructure (GI) has become an urgent necessity for societies that wants to upgrade their physical fabric to respond to the needs of citizens, and to be efficiently managed and maintained. This can positively contribute to creation of liveable cities. This paper draws attention to how to integrate a rainwater management plan for GI in neighbourhoods with infrastructure problems, rainwater flooding, and considers to what extent the use of GI guides would impact the whole city. Furthermore, it demonstrates the experiences of different countries in this field and their sustainable solutions, while taking into consideration the varying scales of local factors' impacts. This paper presents a case study of the Smouha neighbourhood in Alexandria, Egypt; which was affected negatively by recent rainwater floods when there were no applications of sustainable green infrastructure.