Handbook of Water Harvesting and Conservation

24Green Landscaping and Plant Production with Water Harvesting Solutions

Saeid Eslamian¹, Saeideh Parvizi¹, and Sayed Salman Ghaziaskar²

¹Department of Water Engineering, College of Agriculture, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

²Department of Geography, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad Branch, Iran

24.1 Introduction

In modern times, humanity confronts the major challenge of water scarcity, mainly due to the rapidly growing world population and global climatic changes (Schewe et al. 2014). This is particularly true for urban environments, which are among the most vulnerable systems. These bear great environmental pressures, associated with large ecological footprints, and depend to a great extent on water from distant sources, which are transported by means of large infrastructures. Approximately 53% of the world's population is concentrated in cities and more than 75% of the population is in cities of North America, Europe, and Oceania (Ghimire et al. 2014). Climate change, together with cities' growing population, further increases the stress on water resource availability in urban areas (Ghimire et al. 2014).

The major hydrological concerns in urban environments are the reduction of infiltration and groundwater recharge due to the existence of large impervious areas, and changes in the pattern of surface runoff and river flow (Niemczynowicz 1999). These changes impose high peak flows and large runoff volumes that increase the risk of flood events and accelerate ...