Designing with Nature-based Solutions to Mitigate Flooding in Mataniko River Catchment, Honiara

With increasing population and pressure on land resources in the wake of climate change in Oceanic Cities, working locally with ecosystems through nature-based solutions can be a practical approach towards resilient landscapes. Extreme weather conditions and rainfall events as inevitable consequences of the future change require landscape designers to stay abreast of technology in hydrology and hydraulic modelling. This paper illustrates experimental landscape interventions to redesign topographic configurations in Adobe Photoshop that offers unlimited opportunities for developing scenarios for flood mitigation. Through the coupling of GIS with a program that models the hydraulics of water flow, a method to familiarise designers with flood impacts using an iterative and scientifically informed design process is proposed. We conclude through the proposed workflow that the application of nature-based solutions was effective in reducing the water depth in flood events by 6.67 meters in vulnerable areas of the catchment occupied by informal settlements.