Resilience Planning and Design of Urban Rivers in the Face of Flood Disturbances (A Case Study: The Resilience Planning of the River Darakeh)

In recent decades, resilience planning has been received significant attention by experts from most of the fields, especially landscape architects, in the face of flood and drought disturbances. The River Darakeh, as one of the urban rivers located in Tehran, is highly vulnerable to flood disturbance and its consequences despite the construction of flood-control infrastructures—channels and terraces on the riverbeds. This issue reveals the insufficiency of such plans in controlling the flood. Thus, it is necessary to plan and design the River Darakeh in order to reduce the risk of floods and increase the sustainability of the river. In this regard, this study seeks to fine an alternative approach instead of channels against the environmental problems and consequences of the floods of the River Darakeh. Therefore, this paper endeavors to find answers of the questions: is the new approach to resilience a viable alternative to one-dimensional and engineering approaches to the management of rivers? In order word, how can this approach transform the turbulent environment of the River Darakeh into a sustainable and environmentally and flood-friendly environment? Accordingly, this study employs the descriptive-analytical approach as well as a brief review of the related literature in order to gather various resilience indices. Then, design strategies based on the definitions of indices are extracted, and design solutions for the River Darakeh, as a case study, are presented in the face of flood disturbances. This study relies upon seven indices of resilience thinking—namely, redundancy, diversity, strength, connection, learning, self-organization, and variability—to present several strategies; including environmental and spatial diversity, high-level knowledge, the capacities and skills of indigenous people, the application of past generation’s experiences regarding past floods, strength of natural and human-made components, strength of the spatial relations and coherence of design components, and self-organization of social and ecological resources; for designing the River Darakeh to withstand against flood turbulences. This design and planning initiative includes different social and environmental dimensions which can be considered as alternative solutions for the flood control channels and the terracing on the riverbeds. The finding of this paper can be applied as a pattern for chaotic urban rivers in Iran and throughout the world in similar circumstances.