Ecological and climate-aware Water Management systems. A WMs evaluation and operational tool for resilience in architectural and urban stormwater management

Global warming is disrupting the Earth’s hydrological cycle, making extreme weather events increasingly violent, frequent and unpredictable. Climate neutrality by 2050 is an obligation, along with the need to increase European efforts to adapt cities to the impacts of climate change. This Thesis, focusing on the context of the Mediterranean as a climate change hotspot, addresses the issue of resilient urban stormwater management from an Environmental Technological Design perspective, identifying ecological and climate-aware systems as key water management methods capable of enhancing urban resilience by promoting adaptation to extreme events such as floods and droughts while ensuring a circular and sustainable use of water resources. The Research addresses and systematises the plurality of issues related to water management, proposing the formulation of an evaluative and operational tool to support designers in the correct integration of extreme weather phenomena in the meta-design and preliminary design phases. After defining objectives, strategies and solutions that can be evaluated by means of a new set of KPIs, the Thesis provides a method for the validation of design choices based on the interaction between spreadsheets and parametric design aimed at the pre-dimensioning of technological solutions for the storage of heavy rainfall. The informative, evaluative and operational outputs of the Research, in a holistic vision, are combined proposing a tool capable of providing a framework of knowledge and expertise to support designers and public administrations, while raising the water issue to the collective attention.