The Fit of Urban Waterfront Interventions: Matters of Size, Money and Function

How well do existing surveys track fish community performance measures in the St. Clair-Detroit River System?

The St. Clair-Detroit River System (SCDRS) connects Lake Huron to Lake Erie and provides important habitats for many fishes of economic and ecological importance. Portions of the SCDRS are designated as Great Lakes Areas of Concern and fish production and conservation may be compromised. Efforts to address beneficial use impairments have focused on restoring habitat for native fishes and improving aquatic ecosystem health. Considerable site-specific research and long-term, annual fish surveys have examined responses to habitat improvements. However, there is uncertainty surrounding whether individual studies and surveys can assess (1) population-level benefits of habitat enhancements and (2) whether management objectives are being met. To identify monitoring gaps and inform long-term monitoring program development, we compared outputs from SCDRS fish monitoring surveys (based on discussions with regional agencies) with performance measures specified in management plans (obtained through gray literature searches). Performance measures for harvested species aligned well with outputs of existing surveys. In contrast, at-risk fishes often had objectives and performance measures that reflected knowledge gaps and study needs. Although harvested species were well-monitored relative to specified performance measures, at-risk fishes were less reliably collected by existing surveys, except for lake sturgeon Acipenser fulvescens. Effective evaluation of restoration efforts for at-risk fishes may require additional survey efforts that target species-specific habitat use and life history characteristics.

The Han River Development: Planning the Riverfront as Seoul’s Natural Landmark

This paper analyzes the history of the development of the riverfront of the Han River, the river that runs east-to-west in Seoul. In many scholarly works, the development of a commercial leisure district on the one hand, and local uses such as low-cost housing on the other, have formed two opposing waterfront spatial imaginaries. However, it is questionable whether these two visions are applicable to many metropolitan riverfront developments. The historical absence of an industrial port and the focus on the traffic flow in the Han River have contributed to the linear development of the waterfront area. After analyzing archival data and ethnographical interviews, this paper argues that this idiosyncrasy of the Han River waterfront should not be regarded as either underutilization or underdevelopment. Rather, it should be considered as reflecting the unique urban conditions of Seoul, including the legacy of the Cold War, the wide breadth of the river, and the relatively late expansion of the city south of the river. By situating the Han River development in the context of increasing criticism against the copy-and-paste waterfront developments elsewhere, this paper argues the consideration of “place” needs to include a historical dimension as past spatial practices have the tendency to continue to the present even after new developments are established.

Olympic Waterfronts: An Evaluation of Wasted Opportunities and Lasting Legacies

Mega-events such as the Olympic Games are powerful tools for city-branding and urban development, carrying the ability to create lasting physical, political, social, and economic legacies. Waterfront redevelopment has become a primary mechanism for revitalizing urban spaces, especially through brownfield requalification, and the Olympics have not been indifferent to this trend. Several recent editions have engaged in the rehabilitation of urban waterfronts. To analyze common mistakes that may impair the quality of these interventions, we apply a revised version of a binary evaluation tool to nine such Olympic Waterfronts, starting with Barcelona 1992, assessing their contexts, budgets, programs, plans, and environmental integration. The results show that the Olympic Waterfront can drastically change the image of the city, greatly contributing to the perceived success of the event’s legacy and creating new urban centralities. However, the inadequate management in the planning, delivery and, especially, legacy stages of the event can compromise this “Olympic Effect”. The test application of the evaluation tool proved successful in the context of mega-event planning and post-event transformation. It could potentially be useful in informing present and future decision-making regarding waterfront regeneration projects by highlighting pressure-points that, if not addressed, may hinder the future success of the interventions.

Anthropogenic Actions and Socioenvironmental Changes in Lake of Juá, Brazilian Amazonia

The Amazonia rainforest has natural spaces that have undergone extensive and intense transformations, mainly to meet economic demands, camouflaged in biological and social needs. As one of the consequences of this process, the production and expansion of the urban space stand out. In this context, this research describes the historical, spatial, and temporal aspects of land use and occupation in the surroundings of Lake of Juá, located in the municipality of Santarém, west of the State of Pará, Brazil, in order to highlight the main changes in the landscape and socioenvironmental changes arising from this dynamic. The study was conducted based on photographic records, elaboration, and analysis of cartographic data, in addition to the perceptions of residents and fishermen located in the study area, which, together, contributed to the understanding of the historical and spatial changes that led to the current socioenvironmental transformations in the surroundings of the lake. The residents and local fishermen of Lake of Juá, through semi-structured interviews, listed several socioenvironmental overlapping problems that had many impacts on this lake ecosystem, such as deforestation, silting, contamination of water resources and, consequently, fishing resources, loss of biodiversity and conflict of interest. The degradation and decharacterization of the landscape around the lake has compromised the maintenance of this lake ecosystem, as significant and even irreversible transformations have been caused in the community and in the ecological environment, especially when taking into account the absence of public policies or their inefficiency.

Urban Planning Policies to the Renewal of Riverfront Areas: The Lisbon Metropolis Case

Urban planning offers various design possibilities to solve fundamental challenges faced in urban areas. These include the need to physically renew old industrial and harbour riverside areas into liveable, inclusive and sustainable living spaces. This paper investigates the way urban planning policies have helped to renew the waterfront areas in the Lisbon metropolis in the past decades. For this purpose, the contribution of the European Union (EU) and national urban development plans over the past decades are analysed. The results demonstrate an intense renewal of the waterfront areas in the Lisbon metropolitan area (LMA), particularly in Lisbon over the past three decades into leisure, ecologic and touristic areas, vis-à-vis the previous industrial and harbour vocation.