Water and Circular Cities

Nataša Atanasova; Guenter Langergraber

doi:10.3390/w13243585

and

¹

Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Jamova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

²

Institute of Sanitary Engineering and Water Pollution Control, Department of Water, Atmosphere and Environment, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Muthgasse 18, 1190 Vienna, Austria

^*

Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Water2021, 13(24), 3585;https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243585

This article belongs to the Special Issue Water and Circular Cities

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The Special Issue “Water and Circular Cities” comprises 13 paper and was prepared under the patronage of the COST Action CA17133 Circular City (Implementing nature-based solutions (NBS) for creating a resourceful circular city; https://circular-city.eu/ (accessed on 2 December 2021)). COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology, www.cost.eu (accessed on 2 December 2021)) is funded through the EU Horizon Programme.

In the core part of the Special Issue, the COST Action Circular City presents its framework for addressing Urban Circularity Challenges (UCCs) with nature-based solutions (NBSs) [1]. The framework comprises a catalogue of technologies for providing/recovering resources with NBS and the analysis of input and output resource streams required for NBS units and interventions. The catalogue comprises a set of 39 NBS units, 12 NBS interventions, and 10 supporting units. The framework was analyzed by experts from various urban sectors, which refer to different fields of activities for circular management of resources in cities. The urban sectors relate to the Action’s Working Groups and comprise the built environment [2], urban water management [3], resource recovery [4], and urban farming [5]. In the final paper related to the framework [6], main findings from the sector analyses are presented, different sector perspectives are discussed, and ways to overcome identified differences are shown. Additionally, it is concluded that experts from various disciplines can engage in a cross-sectoral exchange and identify the full potential of NBSs to recover resources in circular cities and provide secondary benefits to improve the livelihood for locals.

Additionally, to evaluate the level of circularity of resources’ management in cities, appropriate indicators are proposed by the COST Action and presented in this Special Issue [7]. Other papers included in the Special Issue focus on several aspects of using NBS for creating circular economies in cities, i.e., green roofs and vertical greenery systems [8,9]; production of food in cities [10,11], vacuum toilets generating blackwater [12] as well as biogas plants [13].

We thank all authors for contributing to the Special Issue and thus making it a success.

Last but not least, we thank COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology; www.cost.eu (accessed on 2 December 2021)) for funding the APC of seven papers [6,7,8,9,10,12,13].

Author Contributions

N.A. and G.L.: Conceptualization, writing—original draft preparation, review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This Special Issue is based upon work from COST Action CA17133 Circular City, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). www.cost.eu.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

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