If climate change brings harder and more fatal natural disasters, the cities must be prepared. Yu Kongjian, a Chinese landscape architect, Yu Kongjian, a Chinese landscape architect, recommends working with nature to combat flood damage. YU has campaigned for “sponge cities”, which replaces concrete surfaces with the green, which are targeted in order to absorb excess water. When architects try to control the water with gray landscape design, it is expensive, high maintenance and largely ineffective. However, the use of local systems with low maintenance helps to collect floods that would otherwise not be absorbed by concrete structures. Yu explains: “When it rains, the earth and plants suck the water up and prevent some (or even all) from flooding near areas. Every unopsed excess water is slowed down at least by the vegetation – in contrast to concrete, which can instead increase the water flow dangerously. “
The implementation of sponge cities is not a “one size for all” guidelines. It is a very flexible program. The best way for a city to become “spongy” depends on other factors in the city, such as precipitation level and topography. Cities can include green roofs, urban wetlands, permeable surfaces and much more to perform the task. Many cities have transformed the ground of abandoned buildings and factories into male wetlands. If these wetlands are used, they also take floods from the surrounding areas, while the concrete would be an impermeable surface for flooding to stay up to date.
The implementation of sponge cities can help to go beyond the just flooding. Studies have been carried out that have shown that the biological diversity in an area helps to absorb floods and also release it up to hundreds of tons of carbon. This in turn improves the air quality of the city and lowers the temperature. If a city also has to struggle with drought, it can install water use systems to collect water that wakes up the green spaces through natural processes and clean the citizens, deliver drinking water and leave out contaminated water.
Sponge cities are an excellent opportunity for urban areas to combat tougher effects of climate change in a unique and creative way. Since more and more cities include these ideas in their urban planning, we will hopefully see less life due to devastating floods.