Sustainability & Renewable Energy

Though the Sponge City Concept being piloted in China is new, many of the approaches and technologies involved in it (as well as the challenges and opportunities it faces) have been employed in many different parts of the globe under a variety terminologies, including water sensitive cities, Sustainable Drainage Systems, low-impact development, and ABC waters. This book outlines best practices identified at during the Sponge City pilot project and provides guidance on the design and implementation of similar concepts and technologies globally.

This publication will introduce you to some of the basic concepts of Low Impact Development (LID), a stormwater management strategy concerned with maintaining or restoring the natural hydrologic functions of a site to achieve natural resource protection objectives and fulfill environmental regulatory requirements. Readers will learn about stormwater management using the hydrologic cycle approach, LID design goals and objectives, a comparison of LID to conventional stormwater management practices, and how distributed micro-scale systems are used in LID.

This comprehensive guide by leading expert Tom Liptan provides landscape architects, engineers, and urban planners with detailed information on how to design, install, and maintain a landscape for sustainable stormwater management. It addresses stormwater in the urban environment, relevant environmental and economic policies, and shares case studies of exemplary projects from around the world.

Paced like a scientific thriller, What the Eyes Don't See reveals how misguided austerity policies, broken democracy, and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk. In this riveting account by Dr. Mona Hanna-Atisha, who, alongside a team of researchers, discovered dangerous levels of lead in the city’s water, the author reveals tale of hope amid catastrophe, the story of a city on the ropes that came together to fight for justice, self-determination, and the right to build a better world for their—and all of our—children.

When the people of Flint, Michigan, turned on their faucets in April 2014, the water pouring out was poisoned with lead and other toxins. Complaints about the foul-smelling water were dismissed: the residents of Flint, mostly poor and African American, were not seen as credible, even in matters of their own lives. It took eighteen months of activism by city residents and a band of dogged outsiders to force the state to admit that the water was poisonous. By that time, twelve people had died and Flint's children had suffered irreparable harm. In the first full account of this American tragedy, Anna Clark recounts the gripping story of Flint's poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it.

Although it’s widely understood that energy and water are the world's two most critical resources, their vital interconnections and vulnerabilities are less often recognized. This farsighted book offers a new, holistic way of thinking about energy and water—a big-picture approach that reveals the interdependence of the two resources, identifies the seriousness of the challenges, and lays out an optimistic approach with an array of solutions to ensure the continuing sustainability of both.