How Flooding is Putting Historical Heritage at Risk
| dc.contributor.advisor | Duarte, Natalia Villamizar | |
| dc.contributor.author | Hanbuli, Waad ALI | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-07-02T06:41:15Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-08-29 | |
| dc.description | This thesis investigates the growing threat of urban flooding to Al-Balad, the historic district of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia—a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its unique architectural and cultural significance. As climate change intensifies extreme weather events, Al-Balad faces increasing risks that threaten both its built heritage and the living community it supports. The research combines Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis with community engagement to assess vulnerabilities and identify locally-informed priorities for flood resilience. Urban design strategies rooted in nature-based solutions, such as sponge city principles, wetland integration, and permeable materials, are explored as tools to absorb, redirect, and manage stormwater while preserving the district’s historic character. The thesis contributes to the fields of climate-adaptive urban design and heritage preservation by proposing context-sensitive interventions that blend traditional urban fabric with innovative, sustainable infrastructure. Ultimately, it presents a design framework aimed at enhancing Al-Balad’s resilience while maintaining its cultural identity. | |
| dc.description.abstract | Urban Flash Flooding is referred to excessive rainfall for a time period of more than six hours in an urban area which has hard surface development stopping the water to soak in ground resulting in to water running through roads and streets and damaging the overall urban land. As per the recent study by world bank, it has been revealed that urban areas are becoming more vulnerable to urban flooding and the key reasons behind are rapid urbanization, climate change and lack of resilient urban management. Floods in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is considered the most horrific among all-natural disaster and accounted for 34% of death tolls. Emissions from transportation and urban development significantly aggravate the problem and the city of Jed dah is experiencing extreme flash floods causing loss of lives and damage to property. Considering the ancient importance of the Jeddah Historic area, Al-Bald, it suggests the need to conduct research that aims to revitalize this area with innovative urban design techniques to protect it from this horrific incident while preserving its historic character. Moreover, analysis like flood risk analysis, flood susceptibility analysis as well as rainfall analysis have been carried out to analyse the vulnerability of the study area to flash flooding. The analysis revealed that the area is more likely to be impacted by floods during extreme rainfall events. This demands for a sustainable urban design that increase the sponginess of the area to avoid water accumulation. Resultantly, the multilevel strategy-based design optimization incorporates the sponge city theme. Therefore, including wetland, roof gardens, rainwater garden as well as permeable pavements in the existing design of the historic area, which reduces the area’s overall vulnerability to flood and rain-related calamities and serves as a model for comparable urban design practices. This study advances flood prevention in the realm of urban design by providing a broad framework for architectural and urban design. | |
| dc.format.extent | 87 | |
| dc.identifier.citation | flooding, historical, heritage, resilience | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14154/75741 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Saudi Digital Library | |
| dc.subject | Flooding | |
| dc.subject | Urban design | |
| dc.title | How Flooding is Putting Historical Heritage at Risk | |
| dc.type | Thesis | |
| sdl.degree.department | Architecture,Planning and Landscape | |
| sdl.degree.discipline | Urban design strategies for mitigating flood risk to historical heritage sites (al balad) jeddah with focus on resilience and cultural preservation | |
| sdl.degree.grantor | Newcastle university | |
| sdl.degree.name | Master of Urban design |