Training on Water Sensitive Urban Design and Planning

Future Water Institute, in partnership with Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), India and Water Research Commission (WRC), South Africa is organizing an international virtual training programme on “City-wide Water and Climate Resilience through Water Sensitive Urban Design and Planning (WSUDP)” for African practitioners. 
Read more about the training and register.  Registration opens on 13 January 2022.

Rapid and unregulated growth of towns and cities is a key reason for unsustainable water management in urban areas. Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the largest numbers of water-stressed countries in the world with South Africa regarded as amongst the top 30 most water stressed countries in the world. At the same time, there is increasing vulnerability to flooding, particularly amongst the urban poor.

To meet and adapt to the scale of challenges in urban water and sanitation management, and to develop resilience to climate change, a cadre of professionals who work in implementing sustainable water solutions in the urban areas of Africa is needed. This virtual training programme will deliver a range of informative and engaging sessions to enhance participants’ knowledge on water sensitive planning and design approaches aimed at building city-wide resilience, covering topics ranging from terminology and concepts related to water resilience to discussion on good practices and WSUDP implementation. It will be delivered by a team of specialists from Future Water, and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) India – in collaboration with the Water Research Commission (WRC) and the Department of Science & Innovation (DSI). It is targeted at a broad range of stakeholders – engineers, local government officials, urban designers and planners, consultants, developers, architects and landscape architects, academics / researchers, and NGOs involved in water management.

This CPD-accredited training will take place as a two-part virtual programme, limited to a maximum of 40 participants. The format will be as follows:

PART 1: Context-setting for WSDP (Pre-training self-study, Online Platform), 25 Jan to 1 Feb 2022

Participants will be enrolled and provided with 10-12 hours (approx.) reading / audio-visual training material that they will be expected to cover individually - providing the context for WSUDP in South Africa, a brief overview of challenges and opportunities in urban water management wrt climate change and urban water resilience, WSUDP concepts, and the framework for implementation in South Africa.

PART 2: Water sensitive planning and designing (Virtual facilitated sessions), 2 to 4 Feb 2022

Day 1 (6 hours): Scale, data requirements and case studies 4-hour lectures (incl. short breaks) + 2-hour session for group exercises

Day 2 (3 hours): Urban water resilience frameworks and case studies in South Africa Three one-hour guest lectures

Day 3 (6 hours): Planning and designing WSUDP features 3-hour lecture session (incl. short breaks) + 1.5-hour session for group exercise + 1-hour presentation session + 0.5-hour for closing remarks and feedback.