Author | Marcos MartínezIn 2003, the city of Seoul rediscovered the Cheonggyecheon River. It had been almost entirely covered in asphalt in 1968, when various sections of an elevated motorway were built over it. The body of water demonstrated its effectiveness in reducing the urban temperature and combating the urban heat island effect by more than three degrees.In 2016, various floodgates that normalised the flow of water in the Manzanares River (Madrid) were opened. In less than three years, there is a nine-metre tall willow that really catches the eye, but there are also elm trees, poplars, cattails and reed grass. Over 2,000 trees have grown, and hundreds of species have returned.
The cities with the most trees in the world
The percentages represent the Green View Index (GVI), the total percentage of a city covered by trees designed by the MIT in its project Treepedia.- Singapore, 29.3%
- Vancouver 25.9%
- Sidney, 25.9%
- Cambridge, 25.3%
- Durban, 23.7%
- Johannesburg, 23.6%
- Sacramento, 23.6%
- Frankfurt, 21.5%
We need ecological restoration
As an introduction, we have talked about two cities that have very little in common and are located at different points of the globe. But both are striving, together with the city of Munich on the Isar River, to re-naturalise their rivers. These water arteries are crucial to a healthy city.Concrete and pavements are fantastic elements of 20th century urban landscapes. They enable people to get around cities conveniently and make them accessible to groups such as the elderly or people in wheel chairs. However, they have also taken us away from nature, and many cities have been ecologically scarred.In 2014, the UN indicated that 66% of the world’s population would live in cities. Four years later, the figure for 2050 increased to 68%. The rural migration of the 21st century is gaining speed (in Europe the figure exceeds 73% and in countries such as Spain, it has already exceeded 79%). Cities are filling up with people.
