Wetland cities: how challenging colonial distinctions of land and water promotes urban resilience
Wetland cities: how challenging colonial distinctions of land and water promotes urban resilience
As climate change disrupts weather patterns worldwide, many cities face a new angle to an old challenge: how to define the boundary between land and water. Extreme weather events reveal the limitations of colonial-era efforts to separate wet and dry, creating an opportunity for learning to live sustainably and equitably with urban wetlands.
Alikhani, Somayeh, Petri Nummi, and Anne Ojala. “Urban wetlands: A review on ecological and cultural values.” Water 13, no. 22 (2021): 3301.
Dillon, Lindsey. “Civilizing swamps in California: Formations of race, nature, and property in the nineteenth century US West.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 40, no. 2 (2022): 258-275.
Sonti, Nancy Falxa, Lindsay K. Campbell, Erika S. Svendsen, Michelle L. Johnson, and DS Novem Auyeung. “Fear and fascination: Use and perceptions of New York City’s forests, wetlands, and landscaped park areas.” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 49 (2020): 126601.
When more than six inches of rain fell over New York City in September 2023, water overflowed the channels and drains that usually direct it out of sight and out of the city. Water flooded the streets and entered buildings, vehicles, and subways. The New York governor declared a state of emergency for the city. These episodes of excess water are becoming increasingly common in many cities worldwide. With their impervious, concrete surfaces of streets and buildings that hold millions of people, modern cities rely on water remaining in pipes, canals, and rivers with set bounds. The excess becomes a threat when water overflows the structures designed to contain it.
In wetlands, by contrast, water is supposed to soak in. Defined as areas where water saturates or covers soil for at least part of the year, wetlands provide habitat for plants and animals that thrive on their soggy grounds. These ecosystems demonstrate that flooding does not have to be destructive, and some urban dwellers are taking note. There is a growing body of literature on the environmental, economic, and social benefits of incorporating wetland features into urban landscapes. Historically, however, colonialist city-building projects cast wetlands as incompatible with progress and development. As scholars and practitioners consider ways to bring wetlands back into urban spaces, understanding the power dynamics involved in landscape-scale changes will be critical for creating sustainable cities.
Although wetlands are gaining attention as climate change adaptation tools, scholarship on the relationship between wetlands and social dynamics is still in the early stages. In a recent review article in Water, scientists at the University of Helsinki and Natural Resources Institute Finland analyzed the existing literature on the role of wetlands in urban environments. Their review highlighted the potential for wetlands to help cities be resilient to challenges associated with climate change. With their capacity to hold water in and above ground, wetlands in urban areas can take up stormwater runoff and reduce flooding. Wetland soils can also filter stormwater and improve water quality. Beyond water management, research demonstrates that wetlands enhance biodiversity and regulate temperature.
The authors also looked at studies of the social significance of urban wetlands. Their analysis focused on how social acceptance of wetlands influences conservation goals, looking toward current and future urban wetlands status. Scholarship that takes a historical lens, however, identifies how the destruction of wetlands for urbanization created social dynamics and injustices that still exist today. When settlers first arrived at the vast swaths of wetlands along the East Coast of the United States, they largely viewed them as wastelands that needed to be made more solid to help cultivate crops or build structures. Disregarding how indigenous peoples lived with wetlands, colonists began projects of dredging and filling wetlands to define distinct boundaries between water and land. Rivers were helpful for transportation, but the only way to inhabit their soggy shores, to colonists, was to make them solid. The legacy of this mindset is evident in the many cities where rivers run within concrete banks.
In a recent paper in Society and Space, sociologist Lindsey Dillon discussed the parallel exploitation of people and the environment through efforts to solidify the wetlands in San Francisco. Projects to convert waterlogged “wastelands” into “productive” agricultural or urban spaces benefited white settlers at the expense of Black, Chinese, and Indigenous residents. Now that contemporary discourse on wetlands has shifted to recognize their ecological value and laws encourage restoration rather than destruction, Dillon warns that restoration does not automatically mean justice for those harmed by wetland destruction. Instead, as the perceived value of wetland areas rises, restoration projects can further displace and disenfranchise those who have found a way to live on land that was once considered the least desirable. For example, restoring wetland features in industrialized areas can lead to gentrification, as the area becomes rebranded as a place for experiencing nature. If not carefully implemented, wetland restoration could again displace the communities harmed by the area’s industrialization in this process.
As scholars and practitioners reassess the value of wetland areas in cities, it is critical to understand how research has manipulated environmental narratives of productivity and waste to harm ethnic and racial groups in the past. Such approaches remain essential to ensuring future landscape changes are rooted in equity. Understanding how people today view their environments is also vital to this effort. In a recent study in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, forest and parks researchers compared New York City residents’ views of forests and wetlands to their opinions of landscaped parks. While the researchers did not distinguish responses for forests and wetlands, considering them to be the single category of “natural,” their insights are still helpful in understanding facets of wetland perception. In particular, while natural areas provided a sense of connection to nature that was absent in the landscaped parks, natural areas also evoked more negative responses than landscaped parks. For example, having more opportunities for solitude was attractive to some users but a point of fear for others, particularly women and adults with children.
More research is needed to understand how people perceive urban wetlands at all levels of engagement with them. For example, expanding on the New York City parks study, researchers could distinguish responses between forests and wetlands to identify essential differences in the perception of these ecosystem types. Given their soggy nature, wetlands may be less suited for walking and running than forests and have less recreational value. Wetlands usually have fewer and smaller trees than forests so that they may provide different experiences of solitude or safety. In addition, future research could build on Dillon’s work to better understand how changing perceptions of wetlands impact local communities.
As the scientific evidence for the climate resilience benefits of urban wetlands grows, discourse on the social aspects of restoration must as well. Urban wetland restoration allows scholars, planners, and residents to examine environmental and social values that shape how we believe boundaries between water and land should be defined. Expanding the conversation about wetland restoration is critical to ensuring that these projects promote safe, equitable, and sustainable cities.