Urban green cover

Urban green spaces are critical for making our cities sustainable, healthy, and energy efficient. Such spaces generate a diverse set of ecosystems of substantial significance for human well-being and their dynamics are shaped by human activities.

Urban green spaces include parks, sports fields, woods, meadows, wetlands, private and community gardens, parks, greenways, habitat corridors, street trees, roof gardens and plant-covered walls. Planning for urban green in a city can address a broad range of urban challenges such as conserving biodiversity, adapting to climate change, preserving the recreational spaces, and improving social cohesion. 

The Climate Smart Cities project intends to bring into practice the integration of green spaces and permeable surfaces into the city that would enable the local communities to adapt to the urban environment and minimise local temperatures, by introducing replicable measures at the city, state, and national level. This to stimulate understanding of climate resilient urban planning measures and increasing urban green cover as an adaptation measure with respect to climate change.

In Coimbatore, the project aims at creating a framework for urban green spaces. In cooperation with Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation, Tamil Nadu Institute of Urban Studies, CRISL Infrastructure Advisory, Technical University Berlin and many other partners, GIZ intends to achieve intensification of recreational parks, playgrounds etc. in an urban block to improve the net green spaces of the city.

This all not only to strengthen the community spaces, but also to revitalise the urban ecologies within the human settlements to adapt to rising temperatures and improve air quality. The intended interventions would also connect to the issues of waste and stormwater management that is directly linked with the urban green spaces that serve as urban sponges and disaster mitigation, as well for urban resilience.