Why green, sustainable, resilient cities are the future of APAC

Urbanisation is rapidly reshaping the global landscape, and the allure of city life has never been more appealing. 56% of the world’s population currently reside in cities, and by 2050 that number is expected to rise to nearly 70%.

Our cities are engines for development, connection, and opportunity – but can also exacerbate the world’s most serious environmental and socioeconomic challenges.

These problems are keenly felt in the Asia–Pacific region. Asia’s cities will become home to another 1.1 billion people in the next two decades and the threat of extreme weather like cyclones, typhoons, droughts, and heatwaves is growing.

If that wasn’t enough, cities are also starting to feel the impact of long-term stresses such as housing shortages, ageing infrastructure, loss of employments, and declining health care systems.

We need to adapt our cities now to make them more resilient to increasing threats, reduce their environmental impact, and create liveable spaces for generations to come. But the approaches of the past, are unlikely to solve the challenges of the future.

This is why we need new, innovative ideas and solutions for city planning. And to ensure we continue to protect our environment and reduce our emissions, we need to find ways to live in harmony with nature.

In this blog, we’ll explore green, sustainable, and resilient city frameworks and take a look at some steps you can take today, to start creating the sustainable cities of tomorrow.

How to create cities that will stand the test of time

Green, resilient, and sustainable cities are the future. And Royal HaskoningDHV can help you take the next step forward.

Getting expert consultancy can help you take the right actionable steps for your city – especially if it’s your first time looking at incorporating these beneficial changes into your city planning.

Our dedicated team in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, will draw on international frameworks to provide you with the most up to date information, guidance, and best practice.

As an external partner, we can help you to undertake city-wide assessments drawing on our in-house expertise in urban sustainability and resilience, and support the development of implementable and feasible long-term strategies and action plans.

What’s more, we know how important it is to bring key stakeholders and the community along on the journey, so we build stakeholder engagement into every project we do.

By holding workshops for ministries, government departments, and utility bodies, we can test our findings and discuss the best solutions to take forward. We also undertake community engagement and bring stakeholders into those conversations so they can learn from their community and keep doing so far into the future.

Nature-based solutions deliver benefits beyond their initial purpose

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are a great way to deliver green, sustainable, and resilient cities – offering benefits that extend far beyond their original purpose.

For example, mangroves planted to help protect costal urban areas from extreme waves and storm surges also improve water quality and biodiversity, provide new habitats for fish, and, consequently, boost fishing and tourism opportunities in that area.

Including more green spaces in built-up urban areas also provides a whole host of benefits. Areas of grass provide ground for rainwater infiltration, which in turn replenishes the groundwater. The plants themselves improve air quality and reduce urban temperatures, and the green spaces are pleasant areas for residents to enjoy which improves their wellbeing.

NbS directly address three urgent and fundamental challenges: they improve quality of life, reduce the urban ecological footprint, and increase a city’s capacity to adapt to climate change in a cost-effective way.

By accelerating the implementation of NbS, you can help your cities adapt to the changing climate and enhance resilience while providing other critical benefits, including cleaner air and water. And our dedicated team of NbS experts, delivering solutions for cities across the Southeast Asia, can help.

A holistic approach in action

Our current work in Bangladesh – an area that’s extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change and natural disaster events – shows our holistic approach in action.

The Climate and Disaster Resilient Urban Development in Bangladesh project, financed by the World Bank, is looking to improve critical urban facilities and infrastructure, local economic recovery, and preparedness for climate and disaster shocks in all 339 urban local governments across Bangladesh.

As consultants on this project, we are providing recommendations on urban resilience management and city-wide risk assessment methodology. And importantly, we’re engaging stakeholders at every stage of the project – providing in-person training supported by online self-paced learning options to facilitate knowledge transfer.

Additionally, the Thu Duc Flood Risk Management is showcasing our urban resilience approach in Vietnam. Thu Duc City is facing a growing flood risk due to the combination of rapid urbanisation, increasingly severe climate conditions, and ongoing subsidence.

Recognising the urgency of the situation, the Netherlands’ Partners for Water Program, in support to the World Bank, commissioned us to establish the analytical and technical foundation for a series of flood mitigation projects which include nature-based solutions and green infrastructure designs.

Through this work with OMGEVING and DeltaContext, we have developed a Nature-based Solutions Toolbox that can be applied to any urban context in Southeast Asia.

If you’d like to learn more about green, sustainable, and resilient cities – or if you have a project that you’d like support with – do get in touch. Together we can start creating cities for the future, today.