How can water be better integrated into urban planning? Insights from the Water Sensitive City Partnership
An analysis developed for the Urban Agenda for the EU Water Sensitive City Partnership by planning expert Massimilano Granceri Bradaschia addresses these questions by connecting urban water risks with practical planning responses. Its central output is a Risk–Solutions Matrix, designed to help cities move from understanding their challenges to identifying appropriate and implementable measures.
Risk is not just a matter of climate, but rather a matter of where and how a city is built. The same rainfall event can be a minor disruption in one city and a major emergency in another. Cities across Europe are facing more frequent droughts, intense rainfall, flooding, heatwaves and pressure on groundwater, challenges exacerbated by ageing infrastructure and extension of built-up areas. A downpour that can be absorbed by a city with permeable soils, sufficient vegetation and well-designed drainage may overwhelm a densely built area dominated by sealed surfaces. Therefore, climate risk also depends on where and how a city has developed, including its geography, land use, urban form, infrastructure and relationship with surrounding water systems.
By identifying their local risk profile correctly and selecting solutions calibrated to it, cities can integrate water more effectively into land-use planning, infrastructure nvestment and public-space design, while generating wider benefits for climate resilience, biodiversity, health and quality of life.
Understanding how water risks differ across Europe
The analysis starts by identifying seven priority hazards affecting the urban water cycle:
- drought and water scarcity;
- extreme rainfall and pluvial flooding;
- river flooding;
- coastal flooding and sea-level rise;
- heatwaves;
- groundwater stress; and
- compound events, in which several hazards occur together or reinforce one another.
It also considers two cross-cutting consequences: water-quality degradation and infrastructure failure, that tend to emerge from several hazards at once rather than from a single driver. To translate this complex risk landscape into useful information for planners, the hazards are assessed across nine European spatial contexts, built from the intersection of two dimensions: climatic zone (Mediterranean, Continental/Transitional, Northern/Atlantic) and morphology (Coastal, Riverine, Mountain/Hill/Highlands).
Three broad risk regimes emerge from this assessment:
- scarcity-dominated areas, where drought, water availability and groundwater pressure are particularly important;
- flood-dominated areas, where extreme rainfall, river flooding and drainage capacity are the main concerns;
- and multi-hazard areas, particularly in coastal contexts, where flooding, sea-level rise, heat, scarcity and water-quality pressures may overlap.
The purpose of the classification is to help them identify the combination of hazards most relevant to their territory. The regimes may overlap, as cities such as Barcelona or Rotterdam fit more than one.
Understanding water-sensitive solutions
Once the risk profile has been established, the framework turns to the measures cities can use to respond. The analysis organises water-sensitive planning measures into six solution families (A-F).
These follow the established source–pathway–receptor logic used in European flood-risk governance. Unlike approaches dominated by conventional grey infrastructure, the water-sensitive solutions framework places particular emphasis on spatial planning, nature-based solutions, multifunctional public spaces, water efficiency and integrated urban design.
How can cities choose the right water-sensitive solutions and what kind of benefits do they offer?
The Risk–Solutions Matrix brings the two parts of the analysis (water risks and water-sensitive solutions) together. It connects the seven priority hazards with a catalogue of 27 water-sensitive solutions organised across the six families. Each entry links a solution to the hazard or hazards it addresses together with the evidence, spatial applicability, benefits, and implementation route needed to turn it into a real planning decision. The matrix is intended to be used as a practical planning tool rather than simply read as a catalogue. Concretely, cities can apply it through four main steps:
1. Identify the relevant hazards: filter the matrix by hazard to focus on the risks their city needs to address.
2. Consider the territorial and urban context: filter the spatial contextualisation and urban-fabric filters.
3. Prioritise the solutions: each measure is classified as primary, secondary or conditional, helping cities distinguish central interventions from complementary measures or those that depend on specific circumstances.
4. Plan implementation and avoid unintended effects: the Policy instrument, Administrative sectors, External partners, and Maladaptations columns can be used to plan implementation and avoid known failure modes
The Matrix also assesses wider benefits across dimensions such as water security, heat mitigation, biodiversity, carbon reduction, equity, public-space quality and urban amenity. These co-benefits are classified as high, medium or low and supported, wherever possible, by quantified European evidence.
Water-sensitive urban planning: cities require tools for achieving water resilience across the EU
Together, the territorial risk mapping, structured catalogue of solutions and Risk–Solutions Matrix provide cities with a method for moving from a general recognition that water is becoming an increasingly important urban challenge to a shortlist of specific, evidence-based and context-appropriate planning measures. Effective water-sensitive planning is not about applying the same model everywhere, but about correctly identifying the local risk profile and choosing solutions calibrated to it.
As highlighted through the public consultation feedback, cities require practical planning tools and technical guidance to effectively address water-related challenges and contribute to achieving the objectives set at EU level in the Water Resilience Strategy. The risk-solutions framework will also contribute to the main output of Action 3 of the Water Sensitive City Partnership: Roadmap to a Water Sensitive City Plan, led by the City of Torino.
You can find the Water Sensitive City Risk-Solutions Matrix and related resources below.