Sponge Cities

[Yuri]

Recently I've came across several videos of sponge cities in China and yesterday one of Berlin:

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It's quite interesting, making the cities to absorb and reuse rainfall while creating pleasant parks. Do your cities/countries have similar initiatives? What's your thoughts on that?

[isaidso]

Toronto is spending billions. The latest is the re-naturalization of the Don River and includes the re-estabishment of wetlands at its mouth. It will absorb water like a sponge and mitigate against flooding. Storm water pipe capacity is being increased across the city & massive water storage tanks built to handle extreme weather events. Green roofs are mandated in buildings of a certain size while catchment systems are being built to collect storm water, treat it, and return it to Lake Ontario; the source of Toronto's drinking water.

There are videos on these various upgrades but here's an interesting one from 10 years ago about storm water.

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[mhays]

Seattle has a growing volume of river/shoreline/wetland restoration as well as a trend toward localized bioswales to treat runoff. Nothing on the scale of the highlighted projects above however. We also keep development out of certain low river valleys.

Here are examples in unincorporated King County: https://kingcounty.gov/services/envi...-projects.aspx

More along the Duwamish River through our largest industrial/seaport area: https://kingcounty.gov/services/envi...storation.aspx

Our Downtown waterfront along Elliott Bay got a new seawall recently, part of an array of projects that also includes replacing a demolished viaduct with a boulevard. This isn't "sponge" related but does create a more natural shoreline, much of it under the old tourist schlock. https://waterfrontseattle.org/waterf...ojects/seawall

One example of river protection is the Everett area: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.9985.../data=!3m1!1e3

[Yuri]

In the 2000's, São Paulo followed the traditional approach and built massive underground reservoirs to deal with the outflow of Tietê and Pinheiros rivers.

Before that, every light rainfall made them to overflow and flood the highways spelling chaos over the city. Now, it never happens, despite São Paulo being a tropical/subtropical city (1,400mm/55 inches).

Very recently, aside zoning law estipulations, there are those micro-interventions Downtown, called "jardins de chuva" (rain gardens). It would all be very mundane if they weren't located on busy, rough, very grey corners of Downtown SP:





















Article: https://avidanocentro.com.br/cidades...dins-de-chuva/

[Yuri]

BBC:

Why Auckland is the 'spongiest' city
As weather becomes more extreme due climate change, cities need to become 'spongier'

(...)

The connected parks are designed to collect excess stormwater, soak it up like a sponge, and slowly release it back into the creek. The debris left behind is evidence this "secret infrastructure" is working, Fairey says. The two parks are flanked on both sides by public housing developments. "This stuff is designed to flood so that the houses don’t," she says.

(...)

It wasn’t always this way, Fairey tells me, as we watch a black shag drying its wings on a rock. Less than a decade ago, the waterway was a concrete-lined culvert that ran through seldom-visited muddy fields. When it flooded, water sloshed into the surrounding suburbs. It collected engine oil, sediment and rubbish and sucked this unhealthy mixture out into the city’s famous harbour, rendering the beaches unsafe to swim.

(...)

It's a long and very informative article.

[MAC123]

https://www.cornellrooseveltinstitut...ing-the-sponge

Draining the Sponge
How Flood Control Measures Pioneered in China Can Fortify NYC Against Climate Change

By Michael DekhtyarPublished August 20, 2021

Decades of gridlock, mismanagement, and administrative turmoil have left New York City’s flood and storm infrastructure in a state of serious disrepair. Nine years after Hurricane Sandy, which in 2011 flooded entire neighborhoods and submerged busy streets in several feet of water, the city government has yet to implement serious, permanent improvements to NYC’s flood control system.