A street in Valencia, one at noon and, in more than one section of the sidewalk, not a tree to provide shade. Cars drive fast and passers-by endure the sun as best they can. This week has been especially hot in the city, but also in the rest of the Valencian Community. The high risk alert for heat in 97 municipalities in eleven regions of Valencia and Alicante yesterday is just one example, experts point out, of the change that thermometers will experience from now on. The effect of climate change is here to stay, also in summer.
That is why proposals such as the Grow Green project arise, which seeks to create cities resilient to climate and water, healthy and habitable by investing in solutions based on nature (NbS). Valencia, European green capital next year, is part of the project as well as others such as Manchester, Wroclaw, in Poland and Wuhan, in China. "This pilot project was an experience to implement more innovative infrastructures and more evident technologies against the effects of climate change, but we still have to put the accelerator a bit given what we are going through these days", explains Francisca Hipólito, R D i technician de Las Naves and coordinator of the GrowGreen project in Las Naves.
An example of the actions that can be carried out is the already completed work in the Ciutat Fallera neighborhood, in Benicalap, where the Regino Mas square area has been redesigned with the construction of a blue-green corridor. There has been greening and rearrangement of the area, installation of adapted street furniture and a pergola that generates shade, and improvement of water management through the placement of a draining pavement that allows the filtering and collection of rainwater.
In some of the first monitoring studies of the area, included in the project and extracted from the heat stress data collected by sensors, they point out that this climate laboratory contributes to the reduction of thermal stress by creating "cooler areas due to the location of greater number of shades and vegetation". His first calculations place the drop in thermal stress at 18%.
Hipólito explains that it is plausible to look for urban planning in the city to make it more comfortable and more livable in the face, above all, of this increase in temperatures that has been seen this summer. Hipólito maintains that "the city will have to act in private buildings", and also help public buildings to undertake changes, a long-term journey, the soul of Valencia's candidacy as European green capital.
The I D i de Las Naves technique points out that there are other renaturation projects for the city, such as the one that runs from the L'Assut de l'Or bridge to the mouth, for example. A vocation that arises from the administrations and that needs the complicity of the citizen who, convinced he is, the perception of him will have changed a lot these months.
"We have to learn to love green. Now we miss the trees but the grasses in the tree pit bother us, the rodents in the trunks that climb up to the facades... Nature is a whole and we have to learn to love it not only when we get so hot on the sidewalk", criticizes the project coordinator.
Valencia is currently working on the Valencia 2030 Climate Mission, the first mission of the Valencia Missions 2030 innovation strategy, with the objective of turning Valencia into a climate-neutral city. In addition, the city is already part of the 112 cities that the European Commission has selected within the "intelligent and climate neutral cities" mission.
In this sense, the change of local government does not seem to want to stand out, since the mayoress María José Catalá promised in the campaign to win 300,000 m2 of green area for the city through the preparation of a Municipal Green Strategic Plan that "fits in with the strategic vision of the city, incorporating into urban planning, a system of soil, vegetation and water infrastructures, considering the urban green infrastructure as a fundamental system of the same".
