#sponge cities

[wachinyeya]

‘Sponge’ Cities Combat Urban Flooding by Letting Nature Do the Work https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/sponge-cities-combat-urban-flooding-by-letting-nature-do-the-work/

[bumblebeeappletree]

After a flash flood that sent dead rats floating through the streets of Copenhagen, the city began reimagining itself. Away from concrete and asphalt and towards softer, “spongier” settlements that work with the natural flow of the water cycle. With cloudbursts increasing in intensity because of climate change, many cities from Beijing to Chennai are trying this too - and Copenhagen offers some good lessons.

#planeta #flooding #urbanplanning

Credits:

Reporter: Aditi Rajagopal

Camera: Omkar Phatak

Video Editor: Aditi Rajagopal

Animation: William Bryan

Supervising Editor: Michael Trobridge

Factcheck: Kirsten Funk

Thumbnail: Em Chabridon

Interviewees:

Jan Rasmussen, director, Cloudburst Management Plan

Jes Clouson-Kaas, project manager, HOFOR

Read More

All about the cloudburst management plan: https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/e...

Lessons from Copenhagen: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10....

Chapters:

00:01 Intro

00:52 Hidden in plain sight

03:01 The heart of future Copenhagen

05:37 Machine cities to sponge cities

07:24 Flooding children's parks

08:49 The numbers

09:40 Mitigation before adaptation

[randomishnickname]

very interesting, thank you :D

streets with rain gardens and streets without

[engineeringmarvelsexplained]

What makes a city sustainable?

When we talk about making cities more sustainable it is important we keep in mind the triple bottom line – the economic, social and environmental impact. There are many differing opinions on the correct strategy to achieve sustainability, however I will outline the most prevalent tactics such us a need to change how we view transport and how we build the world around us. Motor vehicles account…

[reasonsforhope]

"Amsterdam’s roofs have just been converted into a giant sponge that will make the city more climate resilient.

The Dutch have always been famous for their ability to control water, born out of the necessity of their homeland, much of which is below sea level.

Now, their expert water management skills are transforming the city skyline in the capital city of Amsterdam from one of terracotta tile, concrete, and shingles into green grass and brown earth.

It’s part of a new climate-resiliency trend in architecture and civic planning known as the ‘sponge city concept,’ in which a garden of water-loving plants, mosses, and soil absorbs excess rainwater before feeding it into the building for use in flushing toilets or watering plants on the ground.

If heavy rains are predicted, a smart valve system empties the stored rainwater into the municipal storm drains and sewers in advance of the weather, allowing the roof to soak up water and reduce flooding in the city.

In this way, the rooftops of buildings can be wrung out and filled up just like a sponge.

In Amsterdam, 45,000 square meters, or 11 acres of flat metropolitan rooftops have already been fitted with these systems, and the contracting firms behind the technology say they make sense in dry climates like Spain just as much as in wet climates like Amsterdam...

A 4-year project of different firms and organizations called Resilio, the resilient network for smart climate adaptive rooftops, rolled out thousands of square meters of sponge city technology into new buildings. As with many climate technologies, the costs are high upfront but tend to result in savings from several expenditures like water utilities and water damage, over a long-enough time horizon...

All together, Amsterdam’s sponge capacity is over 120,000 gallons.

“We think the concept is applicable to many urban areas around the world,” Kasper Spaan from Waternet, Amsterdam’s public water management organization, told Wired Magazine. “In the south of Europe–Italy and Spain–where there are really drought-stressed areas, there’s new attention for rainwater catchment.”

Indeed the sponge city concept comes into a different shade when installed in drought-prone regions. Waters absorbed by rooftops during heavy rains can be used for municipal purposes to reduce pressure on underground aquifers or rivers, or be sweated out under the Sun’s rays which cools the interior of the building naturally.

Additionally, if solar panels were added on top of the rooftop garden, the evaporation would keep the panels cooler, which has been shown in other projects to improve their energy generation.

“Our philosophy in the end is not that on every roof, everything is possible,” says Spaan, “but that on every roof, something is possible.”

Matt Simon, reporting on the Resilio project for Wired, said succinctly that perhaps science fiction authors have missed the mark when it came to envisioning the city of the future, and that rather than being a glittering metropolis of glass, metal, and marble as smooth as a pannacotta, it will look an awful lot more like an enormous sculpture garden."

-via Good News Network, May 15, 2024

[luna-the-cretar]

Shepnax highschool au stuffs

So, when Sarnax first moves in with Shep, it’s during the winter. And since I’m mostly basing Yona off of Texas (at least in my particular area—write what you know, you know?), I’m basing the weather off of the weather here too, so the winter is typically pretty damn cold. And since Shep evidently DOES NOT do well in the cold, he’s always in like. 5 different layers. It’s not like Shep typically shows a lot of skin, even outside of the school dress code, but this man has basically zero skin showing beyond his head and tail.

But you know, the end of the school year is around the spring-summer months, where it typically starts warming up enough to wear T-shirts and tank tops by late April-mid May. So like a month before the boys confess, Shep is just casually walking around the house in a tank top and such, and each time Sarnax sees him, his brain short circuits for a moment.

Also, at one point, Shep teaches Sarnax how to ride a horse, just because (and totally not as an excuse to hold him while helping him get up and down the horse). It works about as well as you’d think it does, and Sarnax is like “I am NOT doing that again.” But then Shep offers for Sarnax to ride in the back while Shep had full control of the reins, and Sarnax is like “alright bet”.

Also also, after they confess, they’re being dumb lovestruck teenagers, and the Doc (the poor man), well, he ain’t stupid. He’s known the two have been making goo-goo eyes toward each other for as long as he’s known of Sarnax’s existence, so when he sees Shep place a quick kiss on the tip of Sarnax’s nose, not only is the Doc like “fucking FINALLY, I was sick of watching you two act like dumb teenagers”, but he is ALSO like “listen, I’m not gonna tell you what you can and can’t do. Not my business. Just don’t be loud, and don’t do anything where I will certainly walk in on it. None of us want me to see that.”

(Bonus points if Sarnax isn’t entirely certain what the Doc is talking about, while Shep knows EXACTLY what the Doc is referring to, and his skin goes from rust to crimson)

[ducktopia90264]

The Puppet King

RIP James Earl Jones

[buffetlicious]

When for an appointment in the morning and it ended early so I proceed to the nearby coffee shop to have my brunch at the Economy Rice (菜饭) stall. From the numerous dishes on display, I chose crispy prawn rolls (虾枣), chicken & black fungus and stewed potato slices to go with rice.

On the way to the MRT train, I spied on the gorgeous confections at Paris Baguette and couldn’t resist the temptation to not eat dessert. Gotten the Blueberry Yogurt Tart (S$9.50) which is topped with glazed blueberries and red chocolate pearls. The light purple yogurt mousse is tangy sweet with marbling of blueberry compote and the sponge cake gave it substance.

[rurpleplayssims]

[bumblebeeappletree]

I wanna thank the wonderful @beeteal for this artwork that I had commissioned! What a beautiful piece of a Sponge City in action during a thunderstorm!

[bxtonpxss]

Spirit Box || Headcanons

Opacho is multilingual. While not conversationally fluent, she can understand French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and a little bit of Russian. However, she really wants to learn Swahili, her native tongue.

[snake-spotted]

hi hope it is ok to ask but where are you from? :3 also love the blog! very silly and cute noodles every day is so serotonin-inducing! 🩷

I'm from the UK, the land of pigeons, tea and bad fish and chips. I actually love tea and seeing pigeons/seagulls a lot!! fish and chips sucks ass though.

aw im so glad you're enjoying the wiggles!! <3

[reasonsforhope]

"In China, a landscape architect is reimagining cities across the vast country by working with nature to combat flooding through the ‘sponge city’ concept.

Through his architecture firm Turenscape, Yu has created hundreds of projects in dozens of cities using native plants, dirt, and clever planning to absorb excess rainwater and channel it away from densely populated areas.

Flooding, especially in the two Chinese heartlands of the commercial south and the agricultural north, is becoming increasingly common, but Yu says that concrete and pipe solutions can only go so far. They’re inflexible, expensive, and require constant maintenance. According to a 2021 World Bank report, 641 of China’s 654 largest cities face regular flooding.

“There’s a misconception that if we can build a flood wall higher and higher, or if we build the dams higher and stronger, we can protect a city from flooding,” Yu told CNN in a video call. “(We think) we can control the water… that is a mistake.”

Pictured: The Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok

Yu has been called the “Chinese Olmstead” referring to Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of NYC’s Central Park. He grew up in a little farming village of 500 people in Zhejiang Province, where 36 weirs channel the waters of a creek across terraced rice paddies.

Once a year, carp would migrate upstream and Yu always looked forward to seeing them leap over the weirs.

This synthesis of man and nature is something that Turenscape projects encapsulate. These include The Nanchang Fish Tail Park, in China’s Jiangxi province, Red Ribbon Park in Qinghuandao, Hebei province, the Sanya Mangrove Park in China’s island province of Hainan, and almost a thousand others. In all cases, Yu utilizes native plants that don’t need any care to develop extremely spongey ground that absorbs excess rainfall.

Pictured: The Dong’an Wetland Park, another Turescape project in Sanya.

He often builds sponge projects on top of polluted or abandoned areas, giving his work an aspect of reclamation. The Nanchang Fish Tail Park for example was built across a 124-acre polluted former fish farm and coal ash dump site. Small islands with dawn redwoods and two types of cypress attract local wildlife to the metropolis of 6 million people.

Sanya Mangrove Park was built over an old concrete sea wall, a barren fish farm, and a nearby brownfield site to create a ‘living’ sea wall.

One hectare (2.47 acres) of Turenscape sponge land can naturally clean 800 tons of polluted water to the point that it is safe enough to swim in, and as a result, many of the sponge projects have become extremely popular with locals.

One of the reasons Yu likes these ideas over grand infrastructure projects is that they are flexible and can be deployed as needed to specific areas, creating a web of rain sponges. If a large drainage, dam, seawall, or canal is built in the wrong place, it represents a huge waste of time and money.

Pictured: A walkway leads visitors through the Nanchang Fish Tail Park.

The sponge city projects in Wuhan created by Turenscape and others cost in total around half a billion dollars less than proposed concrete ideas. Now there are over 300 sponge projects in Wuhan, including urban gardens, parks, and green spaces, all of which divert water into artificial lakes and ponds or capture it in soil which is then released more slowly into the sewer system.

Last year, The Cultural Landscape Foundation awarded Yu the $100,000 Oberlander Prize for elevating the role of design in the process of creating nature-based solutions for the public’s enjoyment and benefit."

-via Good News Network, August 15, 2024

[5-htagonist]

there is NOTHING funnier to me than the fact that i went to see my family for my birthday and my sibling and i had a week where we saw the same meme and annoyed tfffffff out of our partners w echolalia.... HELP

[brooklyndadshow]

Doing the Climate work against the odds

Part of my business was based on climate justice site that the Trump took down within two days of taking office. This was not unexpected - though a bit faster than expected. Our site is actually still up and running because they took down just the front end and not the back end data we're using. It is only a matter of time though. I'm one of the lucky ones from the headspinning carnage of this adminstrations drive to destroy everything in climate an equity.

I do remain hopeful. I did a guest spot on a podcast that talks all about how I'm thinking about this year - refocusing on AI, adaptation, and resiliency.

On that note - I attended a Flood Solutions Fair today in Brooklyn. I'll be working with the organizer on a new AI project that should be announced next week. It was amazing to see the energy and the re-focus on local and communities happening in real time. I know it's going to be a bumpy ride but I have hope.