Journal of Delta Urbanism

Journal of Delta Urbanism

The Journal of Delta Urbanism (JDU) is dedicated to discussing future design as a collaborative enterprise of the disciplines of spatial design, ecology, engineering and policy and as a leading method within the research premises of the Delta Urbanism research community.

The journal aims at exploring the scope, representation and future of delta design in times of climate crisis, looking through the lens of four research premises: ‘Land-Water-Atmosphere Continuum’, ‘Drawing the Delta’, ‘Reversed Engineering with Nature’, and ‘Extremes’.

These research premises examine the multi-layered phenomenon of urbanization between land and water and thus the scope of design in highly dynamic landscapes. What we are now experiencing as the era of climate crisis – the effects of the Anthropocene – aggravates this condition, requiring to look at urbanization in delta, coastal and river landscapes as a formative, operational and performative process. Therefore delta design is discussed here not only as an approach to highly dynamic landscapes but rather as a fundamental shift in the way urbanization is addressed by design, technology and policy — as drivers of environmental change.

The expectations of submitted papers are the following: First and foremost, we are a scholarly journal. This implies that only papers that explicitly contribute to relevant academic literature, as documented in international peer-reviewed journals are taken into consideration. The introduction of every paper submitted to JDU is expected to contain a review of past work on the paper’s topic, which is used to explicitly identify an academic knowledge gap. In addition, submitted papers should clearly mention in the introduction the aimed for contribution in terms of filling the identified knowledge gap.

Beyond contributing to the academic debate, the journal aims to reach out and contribute to practice. Primary interest lies in publishing research that makes a real difference in addressing the immense and growing challenges of today’s urban deltas and coastal areas. This means that JDU encourages submission of scholarly papers that explicitly aim to support design, technology, decision-making and policy-making in the field of delta urbanism.

JDU is a project by Delta Urbanism Research Group and DIMI Delft Deltas, Infrastructure and Mobility Initiative Delft University of Technology.