This research investigates the challenges and opportunities of urban estuaries exposed to spatial, urban, and environmental shifts exacerbated by climate change, ecological disturbances, and population growth, taking the cities of Perth, Western Australia and Newcastle, New South Wales, as case studies. Approaching the design of estuary cities in the Climate Century demands a form of estuary urbanism and new paradigms in design, which embrace the constant presence of water. Water becomes the instrument of change to re-think the design of the city and its relationship with the non-built environment since the climate crisis is also a water crisis. Adaptation and mitigation strategies are still emerging fields in design and planning disciplines. Design disciplines can strongly contribute to generating site-specific climate-adaptative responses while re-establishing the connection between built and natural environments, improving ecological balance and spatial quality, and promoting well-being and cultural values. The methodology involves both analytical and projective-explorative methods promoting a site-specific approach, working across scales and disciplines to understand urban estuaries within larger catchments and as complex hydrological and ecological systems. A fundamental goal is the creation of site-specific design strategies to operate in low to medium-density precincts, leveraging water and nature as design tools to improve urban resilience and liveability. There is capacity here to establish design methods and principles that inform future practices through urbanism responding to dynamic ecological and water systems and the unpredictability effects of climate change.

Delta and estuary cities are facing the immense challenges of adaptation and mitigation to climate change. The very creation and evolution of human civilizations depended on living along shorelines, serving as the source of food, water, and security. However, fear of water is just as deeply grained and cross-cultural as love of water. The unpredictable river and ocean landscapes have been domesticated along history with a special impact on ecosystems since the industrial era. Newcastle’s waterfront, including the Hunter river estuary and the ocean shoreline are unique landscapes, which have been strongly modified due to land reclamation leading to the destruction of such a vulnerable ecosystem. As a consequence, city resilience is under threat due to the effects of unpredictable events, dynamics, forces of climate change, amplified without the natural protection of these water ecosystems. The methodology to present this research includes two primary steps. The first step was the creation of a data and map database to study the historic and current conditions, combined with future predictions, on urban, environmental, and flooding conditions in the Newcastle waterfront areas. All predictions are to identify and catalogue the worst scenarios in the event of a dramatic climate change evolution. The second step, which is still under development and contingent on funding, is the compilation of urban and architectonic adaptative strategies and evidence-based design guidelines that can be implemented and integrated with other environmental, urban and social sustainable strategies. The ultimate result will be a data and map catalogue linked with a set of design principles, strategies, and guidelines aligned with sustainable and achievable goals, to ensure coastal and riverbank adaptation and mitigation. The strategies will not only improve resilience, reduce vulnerability and risk, but enhance liveability in urbanised delta throughout an interdisciplinary approach, and also to ensure a more sustainable future. The problem of dynamic forces acting in estuary cities and its conflict with human habitation needs to be faced in an interdisciplinary manner, integrating different perspectives and approaches that consider current capacities, past events, and future predictions. The results of this project aim to meet those goals and is one step to help achieve a sustainable future.