An aerial shot of a portion of Metro Manila posted by Paulo Alcazaren, an urban planner and landscape architect, went viral in the Philippines in his social media account. The photo showed how the Philippines, the 2nd largest city, lacked green spaces.
The GMA article by Lou Albano, “How Do You Solve the Problem Like Manila?” discussed how the city of 13 million residents could significantly benefit from green spaces to improve their mental and physical health.
Studies have shown that even exposure to green and natural environments can help reduce type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and obesity.
Green infrastructure and nature-based solutions bring mental and physical benefits. It helps the city address the heat, pollution, and flooding problems made worse by rapid urbanization, population growth, and climate change.
The city has only a handful of available green spaces – Rizal Park and Paco Park in Manila, Quezon City’s University of the Philippines Diliman Campus greenery, the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife, the Quezon Memorial Circle, and La Mesa Ecopark.
The restricted mobility and wearing masks due to the pandemic have made the city claustrophobic for some people.
Craving for fresh air and being close to nature have led some residents, those who could afford, to move out and buy properties at the edges of Metro Manila and beyond.
Green spaces are crucial to urban dwellers that the World Bank recommends nine square meters of it per person and parks within 10-minute walking distance as “most ideal.”
In Metro Manila, even at 1 square meter per person, is being generous, says Alcazaren, and there is not nearly enough of them. “We need over a thousand hectares of park and open space for our current population,” he said.
Benefits of Green Spaces
According to Albano’s article, green spaces are advantageous for health and solve the cities’ many challenges from rapid urbanization and pollution.
It solves the city’s air pollution in two ways – trees are natural air filters, and a single tree can absorb the CO2 of 42,000 vehicles.
Greenery encourages active sports like biking and walking, which can ease transport congestion, a massive problem in Metro Manila, and lower carbon emissions.
The article mentions Iloilo City, a city in the Visayas region, as a model city for providing a cycling infrastructure – protected bike lanes and interconnected networks have created strong cycling culture. The city is recently awarded the Most Bikeable City in the entire country.
Green space can mitigate heat in the city that is increasingly made worse by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Concrete pavements and concrete structures retain heat, while trees and vegetation provide a natural cooling effect through what experts call the evaporative cooling process.
Green cover and green spaces can also address flooding. It can decrease stormwater runoff by increasing deep infiltration in the soil and evaporation and reducing up to 55% of the runoff, which can alleviate pressures off stormwater pipes and drainage.
Can Metro Manila increase its green space, or is there enough space for it?
Alcazaren says this is possible through repurposing old infrastructure as a viable solution to meet the rising need for green spaces in Metro Manila.
Cemeteries can be reconfigured as parks; old unused spaces can be turned into parks, vegetation growing in abandoned rail trails can be kept that way.
He also pointed out that the city is already turning unused areas like the BGC Greenway into a green jogging path.
The Role of Nature-Based Solutions and Low-Impact Development.
Dr. Marla Redillas, Division Head of Hydraulics and Water Resources of the Department of Civil Engineering of De La Salle University, says that Metro Manila is so developed that it is becoming impervious.
According to Redillas, who finished her doctorate studies on nature-based, low impact development, and stormwater management in Korea, the good news is that NBS and LID do not require much space and require depth, which the city can still provide.
Redillas refer to rain gardens and bioswales: landscaped depressions featuring plants and trees designed to hold surface runoff, filter dark waters from the storm or floodwater before getting absorbed by the soil or going to the pipes connected to the drainage systems.
With the governments’ robust Build Build Build program, incorporating green spaces and nature-based solutions is necessary, says Alcazaren. “Government really needs to shift away from gray infrastructure that’s all concrete to green infrastructure that embeds urban design and landscape architecture into the picture,” he said.
Vertical Forests and Green Spaces
For a city pressed for more space, vertical green spaces and vertical forests are now seen in cities like Singapore, Milan, Australia, and others can be a good solution for Metro Manila.
These living garden made of trees, flowers, and even edibles growing on the buildings, can lower temperatures which can help save electricity for cooling, helps purify the air, and produces oxygen.
As cities start to experience the impacts of urbanization and climate change, urban planners, engineers, and architects are looking at NBS and LID because it uses or mimics natural processes to manage resources, offering a more sustainable solution.
For a city like Metro Manila to adopt NBS and LID will require a shift in mentality or beyond the traditional way of doing things. Residents in Metro Manila are already feeling the effects of climate change, and the city investing in raising the quality of life of its residents is a step in the right direction.
[…] may have spearheaded the green infrastructure in cities, but projects like these are also popping up in urban areas […]