- Stormwater Management as a Green Solution to Support Environmental Quality: A Case Study from Serbia    883 kb by    Sretovic, Visnja & Brkovic, Matija | visnja_sretovic@yahoo.com    Short Outline We will present the project for the Kumodraz stream basin in Belgrade – one of the pioneering projects in Serbia that used sustainable stormwater management to protect the natural water cycle, enhancing ambient values and creating new public green-space. Abstract In the last decade, Serbia started to adjust its spatial development policies and programmes in accordance with the climate change requirements and needs– a decision which has been backed up by signing and ratifying the Kyoto protocol in 2007, and continuous work on harmonizing its regulation with the EU standards. These efforts have given a new and to some extent different platform for urban and spatial planning. The Spatial Development Plan of Serbia for the period 2010-2020, National Strategy on Sustainable Development and other national development documents have placed the problem of climate change among the major themes to focus on in the next decade. Integrated urban water management is among the subjects that many countries have placed high on their agenda when dealing with urban issues and climate change. The same is in Serbia. From the point of view of urban development, the rainwater and its management is of particular importance, and more and more often is getting in focus of professional attention. The issue has been explored by hydrologists, urban planners, landscape planners and urban designers. It is considered as a constituent with capacity to contribute to the overall urban quality, and effective component of the adaptation and mitigation strategies and procedures. A large number of Serbian settlements still use a combined sewer system, without separation, or any treatment of rainwater. Concerning such a routine, there is a general awareness about the importance of the rainwater harvesting and purification. Urban planners and designers are starting to talk about the importance of urban stormwater as a resource for the creation of ambient qualities and new public green-spaces, and some recent development programmes and strategies clearly illustrate the ongoing change. New decentralized open small-scale systems for rainwater collection, use and treatment, that keep urban stormwater runoff exposed as an ambiental value, and use of the existing landscape as a tool for its successful integration, are very effective at minimising the impact of climate change on the natural water cycle. Although this approach is still in its inception in Serbia, it is gradually finding its way into the urban and spatial plans. This paper will present the project for the rainwater system of the Kumodraz stream basin in Belgrade, as one of the pioneering projects which has recognized the importance of the new approach. The case of Kumodraz also serves as an example of the good practise for other similar places in Serbia. Keywords stormwater, integrated planning, environmental quality Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2012: Fast Forward: Planning in a (hyper) dynamic urban context   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper