One of Urban Hydrologics’ core arguments is that Holistic Stormwater Management is the key to unlocking financing towards solving, directly and indirectly, many of the issues of the contemporary city. Many agendas, such as connectivity, pedestrianization, alternate mobility, urban safety & health, business improvement, innovation, biophilia, tourism revenues, property value increases, and other livable city measures, can all be unlocked, in one way or another, through increased investment in stormwater management solutions that employ nature and blue-green elements for quantity and quality management. This idea and conceptual framework is one of the key arguments that set the foundation of the Urban Hydrologics Approach when the group was launched in 2009.

Stormwater Management is the key to unlocking financing for Healthy, Innovative, Resilient Tropical Cities. Stormwater management is particularly important in tropical regions where rainfall is received with intensity, frequency, and long durations, translating to increased risks of flooding in a climate change era. The Urban Hydrologics group believes that water management is the key to unlocking financing for healthy, innovative, and resilient tropical cities. Restoring connectivity and investing in public open spaces, green streets, and high-performing park networks are critical for creating livable cities. These initiatives require additional urgency and priority investment to restore them. Furthermore, focusing on the benefits of green infrastructure for risk management and flood prevention is an easier cost-benefit analysis to explain to policy-makers, the private sector, and businesses than simply promoting the idea of creating livable cities.

Investments in stormwater management have secondary effects on the urban fabric, including increasing nature cover, mitigating urban heat island effects, and promoting biophilia. Additionally, companies and businesses are more likely to invest in and support green infrastructure if it translates to higher productivity, less disruption to business operations, and greater safety for their properties.

Urban Hydrologics understands that water management through nature-based solutions is key to solving the issues of the contemporary city. By creating more walkable cities with public spaces and linear parks aligned with green infrastructure networks that are intended for water management, Urban Hydrologics can help restore neighborhoods that generate street-front businesses, minimize crime, increase property values, and expand habitat surface area. Water management through green infrastructure also leads to high-performing ecological recreation parks and comprehensively shifts the focus to restoring nature back in city centers and neighborhoods.

Retrofitting surfaces of all urban areas is key to restoring ecosystem services and reversing the impacts of habitat fragmentation caused by excessive hardscape development throughout the 20th century in most tropical cities worldwide. By adopting this approach, Urban Hydrologics can unlock funding to solve multiple urban challenges simultaneously.

In conclusion, the use of water as the key to unlocking financing for livable, sustainable, and resilient tropical cities is the core argument of the Urban Hydrologics manifesto. Water investments can be paired with pedestrian connectivity solutions, biking solutions with green infrastructure medians and green drainage, water can solve the urban heat island, water can boost community participation, and water can help bring communities together by forming stewardship circles to maintain and operate green infrastructure. By following the logic of water, we can solve the most pressing issues of urbanization and create more livable, sustainable, and resilient tropical cities.