Abstract Body

This study elaborates on an ontological, theoretical, epistemological, methodological and analytical design research framework for the possibility of an operative synthesis of, on the one hand, climate-related risk management (primarily, flood exposure from multiple sources, i.e. sea level rise and coastal/tidal flooding, fluvial flooding and pluvial flooding) and, on the other, the planning and design of operational landscapes of material production, as a means for sustainable landscape ecological development. To properly address climate-related risk one has to, also, address unsustainable patterns of material production and the physical and functional organization of urbanization. Following the development of the concepts of “concentrated” and “extended urbanization” through gradients of “agglomeration” and “operational landscapes”, and in contrast to the predominant approach of placing the emphasis on the agglomeration side, this work attempts the opposite: shifting the analytical centrality from agglomerations to the operational landscapes that sustain them, we are able to formulate an urbanization hypothesis where, it is, thus, suggested, an incorporation of biophysical processes and ecosystem functions (central to the performance of operational landscapes) within an urbanized landscape would, at the same time, offer climate-related performance. This is structured around an inquiry for a different landscape composition and configuration. Said landscape image is grounded upon the repurposing of its constituent elements as spaces of productive nature (here: forestry, cropland and/or pasture). The methodological issue that is tackled is the manner through which this repurposing has to be designed/planned so that the resulting landscape performs for water-sensitivity, addressing the different forms of risk from exposure to various flood-related hazards. The research suggests the correlation between landscape composition and configuration with the parameters of the landscape that influence water-regulation and flood-risk management (that is, on one hand, geomorphology, geology, surface hydrography, hydrology, and on the other, the structure of the system of open space and the land-use/land-cover pattern of the landscape), towards a specific organization of productive green spaces in such a way so that they could provide water-sensitive performance as flood-related risk landscape infrastructure.