Improved stormwater management

The Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic – European Art Centre in Białystok ("green opera") in Białystok, is known for its green roofs, green walls and extensive gardens, which perfectly harmonize with the surroundings. The green area serves as a platform for cultural events and successfully promotes the city. Opera gardens are divided into several levels with lawns, walking paths, bridges, sculptures, and small ponds. Different green elements of the building reduce heat effect and noise, increase the thermal insulation of the building, improve local biodiversity and limit rain drainage to the city centre [1].

The company running the Zabalgarbi waste disposal site manages a solid waste–to-energy plant and also houses a mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plant, a composting plant, a landfill and a leachate treatment plant. During construction of the first plant, Zabalgarbi regenerated and recovered the entire Artigas-Arraiz area covering 108 hectares. The area was degraded by shaft mining activity and an opencast quarry. The project aimed at the reforestation and landslide mitigation of this degraded area. Today the area has been reforested, trails were built and space provided for people to enjoy themselves in gardens, picnic areas and along forest tracks. (Ref 1)

Zorrotzaurre is an artificial peninsula located within the Deusto district of Bilbao, Spain. It was formed during the 1950s and the 1960s, when a canal was built to facilitate navigation in the estuary of Bilbao. The Zorrotzaurre project is the latest major urban renewal project to commence in Bilbao. It is an integral and sustainable plan that recuperates a currently derelict site to convert it into a new quarter, and which also includes a flood protection system with water tanks to retain water and a flood protection barrier (Ref 1)

Following an extreme flood event on August 9th 2008 in Glendhu Park, eight houses experienced flooding and many more came within inches of being flooded. Two swales were constructed by Dublin City Council to provide surface water storage to ensure that no flooding will recur in a similar 100-year pluvial event. The swales are designed to self-drain back into the existing surface water sewer system following a severe storm event (Ref. 1).

Lodge Hill is a nature area allocated to become a settlement capable of delivering approximately 5000 dwellings by 2028 (original plans). Green infrastructure is a key component of the current plans and specific GI implementation will be based on the existing GI assets. Specifically, the plans include green corridors, sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDs), various parks and street greenery, community allotments, buffer zones around sites of special scientific importance (SSSIs) and woodland (Ref 1).
The plans for Lodge Hill have been controversial, as Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is a nationally important area of ancient woodland and rare grassland that supports one of the largest populations of nightingales in the UK (Ref. 7, 8, 9).
In 2018 Kent Wildlife Trust started a campaign (#SaveLodgeHill) to ask Medway Council to not to allocate Lodge Hill development, which has resulted in a scaled-back version of the original plans for Lodge Hill from the construction of 2,000 to 500 houses, avoiding any direct loss of the Site of Special Scientific Interest - which will still have an impact on the nightingale's population (Reg. 7).

The project aims to completely redevelop ‘Rozemaai’, a neighborhood in Antwerp, focusing on climate change adaptation, green spaces, and recreation. This includes a sustainable drainage system in which storm water flows via swales into a water stream with nature-friendly river banks, trees and bushes in the neighborhood, green parking lots, allotments and recreational facilities such as picnic tables (Ref. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Since 2019, the district has had a new, accessible park in which the Donkse brook plays a leading role (Ref. 7).

The city of Bydgoszcz modernizes the rain drainage system with the support of EU funds. The current badly functioning rain drainage system (with sanded and littered canals) prevents from unobstructed rainwater flow to the Brda and Vistula Rivers or the Bydgoszcz Canal. This in turn leads to frequent floods in the city. The project is planned for the period between 2017 and 2021 and involves water purification and management of rainwater in the grey and green urban areas as well as reuse of the collected water for watering urban greenery [1,2].

The Dee Park Regeneration Project aims to rebuild the 1,100 homes from the 1960s-built estate, that has been worked on in close consultation with the community. The estate is one of the 20 per cent most deprived areas in the country. The vision for the regeneration project is to create “a safe, inclusive and sustainable community, economically, environmentally and socially, as part of the wider Reading, where people want to live and work, and which will inspire a sense of pride”. The third and final phase of the project is ongoing and is expected to be completed soon. (Ref. 1, 4, 8, 9)

A project for the creation of a new central park was launched in 2018, where a harbor consisting of three docks used to be and is now used as primarily as a car park. The park was planned to consist of three large green spaces that are the exact same size as the original docks. As the green areas are planned to be surrounded by rows of trees, the park will look like New York’s Central Park. The park is set to contribute to Antwerp’s climate change resiliency as the central green area will contain a water basin in which stormwater can be stored temporarily and slowly infiltrate, which is enhanced by the riverbank vegetation (Ref. 1, 2, 6).

A green roof of the total area of 362 m2 was established in a modernized historic neighbourhood in the centre of Bydgoszcz. The rooftop serves aesthetic and recreational purposes for the residents and visitors. Selected plants retain as much as 40-99% of rainwater and absorb air pollution [1].