Transdisciplinarity: Finding Common Ground between Urban Design, Urbanism and Water Sensitive Design

The current research  arises from an awareness of the poor / absent merging of the theories and practices of WSD/LIUDD with ‘Urban Design’, and various categories of ‘urbanism’. The merging of these practices is necessary to optimise societal gains by implementing and retaining the best features of each. The theories behind each practice demonstrate their very different disciplinary origins and explain some of the segregation. The merger is necessary in order to contribute to solutions for the most intractable contemporary urban issues. These include climate change, poor urban mental and physical health, clean water scarcity, biodiversity loss, the need to accommodate population growth without loss of connection to nature, and to reduce infrastructure construction and maintenance costs.