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What is a Sponge City?
A sponge city is a concept we frequently hear in modern urbanization plans in recent years. Especially with the increase in urbanization and concretization parallel to the rapidly growing population, and the resulting climate changes, people have been driven to seek new solutions. Due to climate change, problems such as water floods, inundations, extreme precipitation, and drought are increasingly rising. The sponge city model has been launched as an eco-friendly and sustainable alternative to these problems. These cities, which take their name from their function of absorbing and storing rainwater like a sponge, direct water to groundwater reserves, green areas, and storage areas during precipitation. Thanks to this method, both water floods are prevented and groundwater presence is protected.
How Does a Sponge City Work?
Sponge cities are essentially structures that mimic the natural water cycle. The basic working principle of sponge cities is to increase the permeability capacity of surfaces, ensuring that water is absorbed by plants and soil. In such cities, special designs and structures are used to bring rainwater together with the soil, absorb it, store it, and make it reusable. The most important point in sponge cities is the permeability of the surface. In traditional settlements, stone and asphalt surfaces cause water to flow rapidly off the surface and water cannot reach underground resources. Additionally, the risk of flooding is high during heavy and sudden precipitation. Rainwater harvesting systems ensure the storage and reclamation of water during periods of heavy rain.
How are Cities Transformed into Sponge Cities?
One of the most used structures in this system is green roofs. The roofs of buildings are covered with permeable surfaces and plants are placed. These surfaces slowly absorb rainwater and later make it reusable. This method offers many benefits besides preventing floods. Among these; the protection of water resources, evaluation of unusable areas, improvement of air quality with the increase in the amount of green space, and providing structures that are visually more appealing can be shown.
Other structures used in sponge city models can consist of many structures such as permeable pavements, rainwater harvesting systems, drainage channels, parks, gardens, underground water tanks, and wells. For sponge cities to be built successfully, both the technological infrastructure must be strengthened and social awareness must be created. City residents using water efficiently, local governments supporting sustainable urban projects, and the expansion of eco-friendly practices are important parts of this process.
Benefits of Sponge Cities
The sponge city model provides many environmental, economic, and social benefits by ensuring that cities are integrated into the natural water cycle. Here are the primary benefits offered by sponge cities:
- Sponge cities ensure the reduction of floods and the mitigation of the negative effects of sudden precipitation.
- By directing rainwater from the surface to the soil, it enriches groundwater resources.
- Sponge cities equipped with rainwater harvesting systems ensure the storage of water and its later use for needs such as irrigation or cleaning.
- Green roofs, vertical gardens, and green spaces used in sponge cities improve air quality by providing vegetation to cities.
- Sponge cities have an important role in combating the effects of climate change. The solutions it offers in areas such as water management, reducing city temperature, and reducing carbon emissions ensure that cities become more resilient to climate change.
Sponge Cities in the World and Turkey
As the effects of climate change have begun to be felt worldwide, the search for sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions in cities has also gained momentum. The sponge city model is on the agenda of many countries at this point. Some of the countries that successfully continue this project are as follows;
- China – Wuhan, Xiamen and Chongqing
China is one of the countries where the sponge city model is most widely used. After major flood disasters and loss of life in history, China, which improved its water management policies, decided to expand the Sponge city model throughout the country. In cities such as Wuhan, Xiamen and Chongqing, sponge city projects were implemented with applications such as rainwater harvesting systems, green roofs and permeable surfaces.
- Germany – Berlin
Germany is one of the countries adopting the sponge city model against the climate crisis. Especially in Berlin, drinking water is met entirely from groundwater, reducing water pressure.
- USA – Seattle
The city of Seattle is another example city that emphasizes green infrastructure to manage rainwater and reduce urban water pollution. Projects implemented in the city increase the city's resilience against climate change while also improving urban quality of life.
Turkey, although it has not yet fully adopted the sponge city model, has the potential for this model to be applied considering the increasing flood and drought risks. Especially in large cities such as Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara, studies are being carried out on rainwater harvesting and green infrastructure systems.
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