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Copenhagen - Cloudburst Management Plan
“It was difficult, but it has been done”, with these words Lykke Leonardsen, Head Director Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions at the city of Copenhagen, describes how they developed the Cloudburst Management Plan together with all actors and citizens. It became an ambitious 1,6 billion plan for urban rainwater management and it was initiated after a huge flood in the city in 2011. 350 different projects throughout the whole city will protect the city against floods in the future. Several parks become rain parks, streets become rain streets and at the end of the line some tunnels will lead the water underneath the city center into the harbor. The beautiful part of the plan is that Copenhagen uses it as an opportunity to create new quality public spaces for the citizens on top of the extra green areas. The execution of the plan is well underway and will take up to 20 to 30 years.
Watch the video for Copenhagen on YouTube:Lykke Leonardsen - Cloudburst Management Plan - Copenhagen.
Paris - Swimming in the Seine by 2024
When Jacques Chirac was president of France, he promised that the Seine would be swimmable by the end of his term. He clearly wasn’t able to fulfill his promise, but Anita Ravlic from the city of Paris explains how the city will make this a reality by 2024. Today, 2 million m³ of polluted sewage water per year flows to the river through the sewage overflows. To reduce this to zero, they developed a plan with a price tag of 1,2 billion euro. Part of the plan is the construction of a stormwater basin underneath the Square Marie Curie with a volume of 50.000 m³, the last stormwater basin of the city. In 2024, several of the Olympic swimming disciplines will be organized in the river and in 2025 swimming in the river must be accessible for everybody. This comes on top of the already existing swimming infrastructure in the Villette Basin.
Watch the video of Paris on YouTube: Anita Ravlic - Swimming in the Seine by 2024 - Paris.
Brussels - Brussels Environment, Vivaqua and Hydria
Michael Antoine from Brussels Environment, Olivier Pireyn from Vivaqua and Boud Verbeiren from Hydria paint the Brussels water landscape, explain how they will adapt the existing overflow infrastructure and which study they are currently conducting to potentially use the Belliard stormwater basin in a dynamical way to reduce the sewage overflows. The questions asked by the public revealed a sorrow point of the Brussels plans, there is no calculated objective for a specific moment in time to reduce the 10 million m³ of sewage water discharged yearly in the Senne and the canal. Where the other cities have ambitious short-term plans, Brussels is looking at the problem at a much longer term and step by step.
Watch the video of Brussels on YouTube: Brussels Environment, Vivaqua and Hydria - Current and future projects
You can find more pictures of the event on https://www.canalitup.org/en/after-the-conference/.
A procedure already ongoing for seven years
Originally, Belgium, like all other European countries, was supposed to provide air quality that met the minimum standards agreed upon at the European level by 2010. Because the air quality in Belgium was so poor, our country was exceptionally given time until 2015. But even in 2015, air quality was still substandard - especially in Brussels and Antwerp. That is why the European Commission launched an infringement procedure in 2016, which is still ongoing today.
According to several Belgian NGOs, the protracted procedure is to the detriment of the health of Belgians who are not served by a procedure that has already lasted seven years.
"The European Commission can no longer let this matter run its course and must take urgent action," said Inge Salden of the Antwerp-based action group Recht op Lucht.
Last year, this group released a scientific report showing that even in 2021, European standards were not met everywhere in Antwerp (1).
Elsewhere in Belgium, air quality also exceeds these standards in some places, as shown by the Irceline models (2). In Brussels, the CurieuzenAir project showed that 1.4% of Brussels residents are still exposed to illegal air quality (3).
An Macharis, from the Citizenne organization, said: "Taking some fresh air is simply impossible in our neighborhood".
Their organization is located on the Brussels ring road, where the highest NO2 concentration was measured during the CurieuzenAir project.
"Our lungs deserve better"
That Belgium still does not meet current standards is hallucinatory. Indeed, European countries are currently discussing new rules on air quality. Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the European Commission, has repeatedly warned that the rules will become stricter. "This is a good thing," says Tim Cassiers of BRAL, a member organization of HEAL, a European alliance of organizations working for the environment and health. (4) This coalition recently launched a petition (5) to urge the European institutions to base the new standards on the latest medical and scientific knowledge. They have already collected over 125,000 signatures.
It is the elderly and children, those whose health is fragile, who pay with their health the price of poor air quality in Europe. Just recently, the European Environment Agency announced that 1,200 children in Europe die every year from the effects of air pollution (6).
Eurocommissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius must take responsibility
The organizations are calling on EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius to act more decisively. It is imperative that the EU enforce its own legislation to hold the Belgian government accountable for taking the necessary steps to improve air quality.
"The office of EU Commissioner Sinkevičius is located on Rue de la Loi, one of the most unhealthy roads in Brussels. By enforcing its own legislation, the EU would also take responsibility for its own environment," said Tim Cassiers of BRAL.
Pierre, director of Chercheurs d'Air, concluded by saying: "Brussels, the capital of Belgium, but also of the EU, is the 8th most polluted city in Europe, in terms of nitrogen dioxide. This gas is very harmful to health. The European Commission must speed up the infringement procedure so that Belgium will seriously and quickly fulfill the task of protecting the health of its population from the risks of air pollution."
END
Note to editors
- The report of Recht op Lucht https://rechtoplucht.be/rapport-metingen-2021/
- The maps of Irceline https://www.irceline.be/fr/qualite-de-lair/mesures/dioxyde-dazote/history/no2_anmean_rioifdm
- The website of: Curieuzenair www.curieuzenair.brussels
- https://www.env-health.org/
- https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/clean-air-now?utm_source=partner-HEAL
- https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/newsroom/news/air-pollution-levels-across-…
- Belgium presently doesn’t meet the requirements of Directive 2008/50/EC on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe.
Press contacts
- Inge Salden, Recht Op Lucht, contact@rechtoplucht.be, +32 496 30 96 88
- Tim Cassiers, BRAL, tim@bral.brussels, +32 476 44 92 23
- Pierre Dornier, Les Chercheurs d’Air, +32496815263
Coalition
BRAL, Chercheurs d’Air, Citizenne, Clean Cities Campaign, Fietsersbond, Filter Café Filtré Atelier, Recht op Lucht
Here you can find pictures of the action: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1_xTOg78HHNzK_FIBSm5pPGPpagScGJ3D
Does soil play a role at all, or is it just a piece of the world we build on, excavate and drain, or walk, cycle, drive on, ... without looking at it? If it is about soil at all, it is mostly about polluted soil. About what doesn't belong in it, and therefore needs to be cleaned up.
On the other hand, we see far less reflection on living soil, as an essential part of our living environment. Or so we thought. Super Terram has taught us how many people and initiatives there are for whom soil is important. This 'bottin' is a reflection of that, it shows the multitude of ideas out there.
What does soil teach us about the limits of our way of urban planning? Where do we 'negotiate' with the nature around us, and what does that mean in practice when you want to change a piece of the city?
Super Terram is a research and collective experiment to learn how far we can go to translate insights about the relationship man and soil into the institutions and practices that make the city. Such thinking is important and has very concrete repercussions in the city.
Consider the developments at the Josaphat site, where a piece of nature has developed unforeseen; where a living soil has formed. Unforeseen development .... Is there still room for it in today's city? And what about a site like Schaerbeek-Formation, where we have the opportunity to design economic developments in concert with a living soil?
These kinds of questions and reflections also immediately make it clear that the end of Super Terram as it existed until now does not mean the end of working around living soil in the city.
Raf Pauly
To reinforce its team, CityTools is looking for a “Participation and community outreach collaborator”, or a social worker with an affinity for urban and/or architectural issues, or an architect or sociologist with concrete experience of contacts with actors on the ground.
Read more about the vacancy in the attachment.
When Senina of Mains saw they almost ran out of coffee, she did not hesitate for a second: she jumped on her cargo bike and headed out. “A cargo bike is so much faster than a car for a quick trip for extra supplies,” she said. “We do all our deliveries by bike as well.”
Her bike came from the Cairgo Bike project, I saw by the sign attached at the back. “Yes, that project was a big success for Brussels, but also for us. Thanks to the project, we could get our bike 40 percent cheaper, which came in handy for a starting business like ours.”
The bike was not the great unknown for her either. “I’m from Moldavia originally, but I got to know the bike when I lived in London from 2000 through 2019. Bikes were really accepted there and they get a lot of space. When I arrived in Brussels, I was a bit shocked: there is so much traffic here for such a small city! Corona has really changed things to get people more on the bike. I hope it will stay like this. Projects like Cairgo Bike really help with that.”
“It also helps that the bike is electric,” she laughs, “because the hills in Brussels are quite steep!”
Thanks for the quick chat and have a safe climb back to the bakery!
Cairgo Bike Brussels: results
Cairgo Bike was a project of the Brussels region to promote the cargo bike as a mode of transport for companies and individuals. As part of the projects, cargo bike users have measured the air quality they experienced. The most important lesson? Cargo bike riders succumb to less air pollution than car drivers do!
The study
In the framework of the project Cairgo Bike, Environment Brussels has studied 111 users between July 2020 and September 2023. These 111 people carried around, by their own volition, a measuring device (an aethalometer) during two weeks during all their movements, both by car and by bike.
The results
The research shows that (cargo) cyclists in Brussels are less exposed to black carbon than car drivers are. During rush hour, it appeared that cyclists are exposed 33% less to black carbon than drivers. In off-peak hours, that reduction goes up to 35%. The reasons are that cyclists can choose routes with less traffic, and use cycling paths separated from road traffic, enabling them to avoid car exhausts.
Black carbon
Black carbon is emitted by road traffic, heating and industrial activities. It comes from the combustion of gasoil or fuel. It is composed of very fine particles that can easily penetrate the lungs and the vascular system. This increases the risks of cancers and heart- and cardiovascular diseases.
Cycling is healthier
By preferring a cargo bike and by altering your route consciously, you can decrease your exposure to black carbon. A few tips! Choose greener areas like parks and cycling paths and avoid canyon streets. In those narrow streets, surrounded by tall buildings, dirty particles cannot disperse as easily. That is why you can find higher concentrations of black carbon there.
Cairgo Bike continues
Even though the European project ends, the work continues. Parking.brussels will install more safe parking spaces for cargo bikes. Cambio will continue to increase its supply. The subsidies from the administration Brussels Economy and Employment to purchase a cargo bike for small and medium enterprises will return in 2024. ProVelo will continue to support families and Urbike continues its work for companies.
And BRAL? We will continue to measure the air quality with ExpAIR, and we will continue to battle for more green spaces in the city, where it is healthier to breathe.
You can download the complete report on the website of Brussels Environment.
Recycle is currently urgently looking for students who want to support their urban composting project. They would love to welcome versatile cyclists to their team.
You can find the description of the job ad in the attachement. Don’t hesitate to spread the word! Thank you for helping!
More information and to apply: Sandrine, sandrine@recyclo.coop, +32 472 97 15 74