<
https://www.timeout.com/climate-action/how-cities-lost-rivers-are-being-revived>
"Most city-dwellers are unaware of the subterranean waterways flowing beneath
their feet, but many cities have forgotten rivers that have been buried
underground for over a century.
In Paris, a stream named the Bièvre used to flow through the Left Bank, joining
the Seine near the Gare Austerlitz. In the 1800s, Victor Hugo described it as
an idyllic urban oasis and its water was rumoured to have magical properties.
But over time water-mills, tanners and shoemakers gathered around the Bièvre,
and by the mid-nineteenth century it had become a health hazard. Baron
Haussmann’s transformation of the city saw it gradually buried underground,
until it completely disappeared from the Parisian landscape in 1912.
Several efforts to revive the Bièvre have since failed, but in 2020 the Paris
city council announced its intention to recover the forgotten waterway as part
of its ambition to bring nature back into the city. Bodies of water can
mitigate the heat island effect by absorbing heat, and can also help prevent
flooding by carrying excess rainwater. ‘The renaissance of the Bièvre is no
longer an unrealistic hypothesis,’ Dan Lert, the deputy mayor in charge of
climate, water and energy, said after mayor Anne Hidalgo was re-elected in
2020. ‘There is a real need for more cool, green areas in Paris!’
The Bièvre is not the only urban river to experience a renaissance. Around the
world, ‘daylighting’ (the process of uncovering lost rivers, also known as
‘deculverting’) has been developing slowly but surely. In 2014, Auckland
‘daylighted’ the Fairburn and Parahiku reserve streams. Sheffield inaugurated
its Porter Brook pocket park in 2016, and for the past decade the city of
Yonkers, New York has been uncovering the Saw Mill River, buried since the
1920s. Madrid, Manchester and New York City are also considering similar
restoration projects."
Via
Future Crunch issue 189:
https://futurecrunch.com/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
