Book of Abstracts

22
dual purpose – stormwater harvesting and aquifer treatment – pilot-scale biofilter being operated for more
than two years now in Kfar-Sava (Zinger).
Rethinking the Law and Policy of Protected Areas in a Warming World
Pamela S. Chasek, Ph.D., International Institute for Sustainable Development, 300 E. 56 th St., New York, USA;
pam@iisd.org
The idea of setting aside natural areas for protection or restricted use has a long history, and its practice dates back
more than 2,000 years in the Middle East, where large tracts of rangeland were set aside to prevent overgrazing, and
in northern India, where the Mauryan kings established reserves to protect forests, elephants, fish, and wildlife. In
1872, the United States established its first “modern” protected area or park to preserve remnants of a local
ecosystem—Yellowstone National Park. The dominant underlying philosophy in establishing protected areas until
the second half of the 20th century in the United States and elsewhere remained the preservation of nature and
wilderness for future generations, while recognizing their potential economic values for tourism and science.
Today, however, the challenges of protected area policy are different. As climate change induces shifts in the
habitats and ranges of plant and animal species, the ecological attributes and values of areas that have already been
protected are changing, and it is far from clear whether and how the existing network of protected areas can keep
pace with these changes. Nor is it clear, given the pressure that population growth and economic development place
on the remaining unprotected estate, that new protected areas or even networks of protected areas can be created as a
response or adaptation to climate change. The ecosystems impacted by climate change will adapt without the
intervention of a political constituency. But the adaptation through law and public policy of the existing protected
area system will not occur without political initiative and intervention. The question, therefore, arises of whether
there is a political constituency for adapting protected areas to climate change and, if not, whether one can be
created.
This article examines the impact of climate change on the thinking about protected areas, noting a turn
away from species protection toward ecosystem-based adaptation planning, the establishment of wildlife corridors
or connectivity conservation, adaptive management, and a land acquisition strategy that can accommodate climate
change-related species migration. The final section details ways in which American conservation organizations and
the US government are already changing their strategic direction and revising their approach to protected areas in
response to the realities of climate change.
Sustainable urban water management and Urban Design: the Israeli case
Tal Alon-Mozes and Associate Professor Elissa Rosenberg, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion-
Israel Institute of Technology; artal@technion.ac.il
As distinct from conventional approaches, the integrative perspective of sustainable urban water management, which
brings together engineering, hydrological, ecological and urban perspectives, demands new holistic frames of
analysis (Hill 2009). This paper will suggest a framework for assessing the emerging field of water sensitive design
in Israel that relates hydrological functionality to urban design. Criteria will include a review of spatial aspects of
stormwater management practices within the urban context; locations within watersheds; land use adjacencies;
connectivity; scale/size; degree of integration within the urban fabric and the level of multi-functionality and public
use. We will analyze recent projects situated along Israel's coastal plain and Judean Hills, and point out the
achievements and the potentials for better design of water sensitive cities in Israel.
Water-sensitive urban design: Effect of surface moisture and vegetation on thermal comfort in desert
cities
Evyatar Erell; Desert Architecture and Urban Planning, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev, Israel; erell@bgu.ac.il