Colin Thorne

Colin Reginald Thorne (born September 1952) is Chair of Physical Geography at the University of Nottingham.

A fluvial geomorphologist with an educational background in environmental sciences, civil engineering and physical geography; he has published 9 books and over 120 journal papers and book chapters.

He was educated at Kelvin Hall School and the University of East Anglia (BSc; PhD, 1978).

He was awarded the Collingwood Prize by The American Society of Civil Engineers in 1986 and the Back Award of the Royal Geographical Society in 2016.

Colin has been heavily involved in governmental policy including leading the geomorphology work package in the UK's Foresight flood and coastal defence project.

He has also sat on the government's SAGE advisory group after the UK Floods. Professor Colin Thorne's research has also had public impact in the Costa Rica vs. Nicaragua International Court of Justice case, where Colin acted as an expert witness.

During a career spanning four decades, has held academic posts at UEA, Colorado State University, the USDA National Sedimentation Laboratory, USACE Waterways Experiment Station, NOAA Fisheries, and the University of Nottingham.

He is also a Concurrent Professor at Nanjing University and an Affiliate Professor at Colorado State University.

Thorne led the Blue-Green Cities research project (2013-2016), funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), that aimed to deliver and evaluate the multiple flood risk benefits in Blue-Green Cities.

Led by Thorne, the Research Consortium included 8 UK universities: the University of Nottingham, the University of Leeds, the University of Cambridge, Heriot-Watt University, Newcastle University, the University of the West of England, Cranfield University and the London School of Economics as well as partners in the US and China.

In June 2013 the Research Consortium selected Newcastle upon Tyne as a Demonstration City partly in response to the June 'Toon Monsoon' in 2012.

A Blue-Green City aims to reconfigure the urban water cycle to resemble a naturally-oriented water cycle while contributing to the amenity of the city by bringing water management and green infrastructure together.

This is achieved by combining and protecting the hydrological and ecological values of the urban landscape while providing resilient and adaptive measures to address future changes in climate, land use, water management, and socio-economic activity in the city.

A Blue-Green City is more than the blue and green infrastructure that it comprises; it is a holistic concept that requires collaboration between government, industry and public stakeholders and partnerships working to be fully implemented.

Blue-Green Cities generate a multitude of environmental, ecological, socio-cultural and economic benefits through integrated planning and management and may be key to future resilience and sustainability of urban environments and processes.

In addition to making the urban environment more resilient to flood and drought events, a Blue-Green City is designed to maximise the use of water as a resource, e.g. through rainwater harvesting, irrigation of river channels, groundwater recharge and as a local amenity.

Water is preferentially attenuated and stored on the surface to maximise the potential environmental and social benefits, and reduce stress on the subsurface piped sewer system.

A Blue-Green City also aims to collect and store water during flood events for later use in times of drought.

Blue-Green Cities aim to reintroduce the natural water cycle into urban environments and provide effective measures to manage fluvial (river), coastal, and pluvial (urban runoff or surface water) flooding while championing the concept of multi-functional green space and land use to generate multiple benefits for the environment, society, and the economy.

Visible water in cities has massively declined in the last century and many areas are facing future water scarcity in response to changes in climate, land use and population.

The concept of Blue-Green Cities involves working with green and blue infrastructure components to secure a sustainable future and generate multiple benefits for the environmental, ecological, social and cultural spheres.

This requires a coordinated approach to water resource and green space management from institutional organisations, industry, academia and local communities and neighbourhoods.

The natural water cycle is characterised by high evaporation, a high rate of infiltration, and low surface runoff.

This typically occurs in rural areas with abundant permeable surfaces (soils, green space), trees and vegetation, and natural meandering water courses.

In contrast, in most urban environments there is more surface runoff, less infiltration and less evaporation.

Green and blue spaces are often disconnected.

Meaning for a city to be Blue-Green, it requires a further step beyond the implementation of blue and green infrastructure.

The lack of infiltration in urban environments may reduce the amount of groundwater, which can have significant implications in some cities that experience drought.

In urban environments water is quickly transported over the impermeable concrete, spending little time on the surface before being redirected underground into a network of pipes and sewers.

However, these conventional systems (‘grey’ infrastructure) may not be sustainable, particularly in light of potential future climate change.

They may be highly expensive and lack many of the multiple benefits associated with Blue-Green infrastructure.

Land planning and engineering design approaches in Blue-Green Cities aim to be cost effective, resilient, adaptable, and help mitigate against future climate change, while minimising environmental degradation and improving aesthetic and recreational appeal.

Key functions in Blue-Green Cities include protecting natural systems and restoring natural drainage channels, mimicking pre-development hydrology, reducing imperviousness, and increasing infiltration, surface storage and the use of water retentive plants.

A key factor is interlinking the blue and green assets to create Blue-Green corridors through the urban environment.

Blue-Green Cities favour the holistic approach and aim for interdisciplinary cooperation in water management, urban design, and landscape planning.

Community understanding, interaction and involvement in the evolution of Blue- Green design are actively promoted(e.g. Newcastle's LAA ).

Blue-Green Cities typically incorporate sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), a term used in the United Kingdom, known as water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) in Australia, and low impact development or best management practice (BMP) in the United States.

Green infrastructure is also a term that is used to define many of the infrastructure components for flood risk management in Blue-Green Cities.

Water management components in Blue-Green Cities are part of a wider complex “system of systems” providing vital services for urban communities.

The urban water system interacts with other essential infrastructure such as information and telecommunications, energy, transport, health and emergency services.