Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

Newcastle presents among the most compelling models for confronting the impacts of climate change in the world today. Faced with the continuing problem of recurring floods throughout its history, Newcastle has adopted water management policies that integrate multiple ecosystem services in tandem with a policy approach that revitalized a deteriorating and depleted downtown area. This study shows how Newcastle changed its hydrologic plans from diverting water using walls and culverts to investing in blue-green infrastructure. Like Istanbul and Melbourne, Newcastle has helped lead cities’ adaptive responses to climate hazards through a coherent and repeatable framework put forward through a decisive resolution. In particular, Newcastle’s usage of nationally endowed funding affords space for interdisciplinary communities of researchers from public and private spheres to engage in open discourses on socio-ecological issues, including water resources management. These efforts have not only brought more life to the inner city but contributed to new ways of thinking about approaches to flood control, developing novel techniques for holistic and integrated water management focused on improving quality and quantity by joining urban and rural sustainable designs through runoff attenuation features and with sustainable urban drainage systems.