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Our cities aren’t just concrete jungles. Every blade of grass, every tree, pond, lake and lump of soil together form vital infrastructure.
As cities face increasing threats from climate change – including heavy rainfall and extreme heat events – they need to fully understand this natural infrastructure and how to enhance it.
That’s why, using our Artificial Intelligence and land use analysis tool, Terrain, we have developed the Global Sponge Cities Snapshot looking at the urban centres of ten global cities: Auckland, London, Montreal, Mumbai, Nairobi, New York, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Toronto.
44% of all 'disaster events' have been flood related
700m people live in places where maximum daily rainfall has increased
4-5x increase in impact of direct flood damages if global warming reaches 4C
Creating the snapshot
Using Terrain, we calculated the amount of green and blue areas in the urban centres of each city. We then factored in the impact of soil types and vegetation and calculated the rainfall runoff potential. We used this to produce our sponge snapshot.
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Blue, green and grey infrastructure
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Soil types and vegetation
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The water runoff potential
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City's sponge snapshot
Terrain
Terrain helps cities rapidly understand how land is being used. It harnesses the power of data analytics, machine learning and automation to accurately digest large quantities of data and satellite imagery.
Find out more- 20,000m2 Area of land analysed per second
- 5x Quicker than manual approach
So, which is the spongiest city?
This survey is not intended as a scorecard. Or an assessment of risk. Some cities may be less “spongy” but have fewer heavy rainfall events to cope with. The snapshot is aimed at getting cities thinking more about nature as an asset, as infrastructure – to be protected and enhanced.
Download the Global Sponge Cities Snapshot
Discover more
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Project
New York City Green Infrastructure
Like many cities, New York has combined sewer systems carrying both waste and storm water. To help the city reduce overflows, we introduced green infrastructure - natural systems that can absorb up to 90% of all rainfall or the first inch of rain.
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Project
Shanghai urban drainage masterplanning
To help deal with flood risk in Shanghai, and the need to upgrade its existing drainage system, we developed a plan that focused not only on drainage, but took a 'blue, green and grey' approach to support an integrated water cycle within the city.
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Project
Greener Grangetown
Greener Grangetown is a sustainable drainage system (SuDS) project that has also been designed to transform the quality of the public realm and improve cycling and pedestrian infrastructure across a city centre neighbourhood.