Urbanization and extreme weather require smarter urban water management. Nature-based solutions (NBS) like vegetated roofs and city trees can contribute effectively to climate resilience and future proof urban water management. However, large scale implementation is limited due to a lack of knowledge among professionals on how to capture, store, and reuse water on-site. In this paper we advocate a classification into no-tech, low-tech, and high-tech green, thereby supporting urban designers to better utilize the ability of these green elements to effectively manage water flows in different urban settings. Here, “no tech” green is considered traditional urban green, handling (rain) water like nature would. “Low-tech” green (e.g., extensive Sedum roofs) are suitable for dense urban settings with limited demand for water management and ecosystem services. More developed “high-tech” green solutions have vegetation performing even beyond natural capacities, offering full water management control options and enable city planners, architects and landscape designers to enhance urban resilience and circularity without claiming valuable urban space. We elaborate our “tech NBS” approach for city trees and vegetated roofs thereby demonstrating the classification's added value for sustainable urban design. We conclude that specifying the demanded “no/low/high” -tech level of green infrastructure in urban design plans will help to yield the most of ecosystem services using appropriate levels of available technology.

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While urbanization and increasing population has put much pressure on natural drainage channels and resulted in increase in looding, there is increased pressure on available water resources due to climate change, reduction in frequency of rainfall events and drought. The emergence of a sustainable drainage system (SuDS), also known as best management practice (BMP) and low impact development (LID), has changed the management strategy of drainage from conventional to sustainable. SuDS techniques seek to deliver the three cardinal paradigms of sustainable drainage: quantity, quality and amenity and as such, they can ofer an additional beneit for applications such as landscape irrigation. Most SuDS techniques have the potential for water storage with minimal or no modiications required. This chapter, while covering the capabilities of SuDS systems, explores SuDS devices such as pervious pavements equipped with excess storage capacity, cisterns and tanks harvesting roofwater, iniltration systems aimed at supporting the growth of urban plants and green roofs with the potential to store water in order to maintain water demanding planting scheme even during dry periods. It also covers systems where SuDS is the main driver to device installation and address issues and considerations surrounding applications of such systems in water harvesting for irrigation.

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