Page 66 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 2

Water Sensitivity In The Context Of
Climate-Friendly Urbanism

beneficial as natural corridors, synthetic corridors offer many advantages in
terms of environmental quality and aesthetics through their interaction with
the water, soil and plants inside them (Figure 5).

Figure 5: The relationship between transportation corridors and water management in the city.
For the cities to maximize these profits, the embankments of these
corridors in different width and declinations must be densely forested. In
addition, through multi-layered vegetation, these areas should be rendered
able to absorb carbon as well as other pollutants. Moreover, through the use
of not only ligneous plants, but also herbaceous plants and geophytes, these
areas should be transformed into productive landscape. In this green texture,
evaporation from the leaves of plants and the water they absorb from the
soil makes it possible to support natural water cycle as well as facilitating
drainage. The erosion risk posed by rainwater taken under control can be
prevented with the terracing on the embankments of these corridors.
The highway corridors are giant lines that are hundreds of kilometers long
and their platform width ranges from 8-12 meters to 25-35 meters. When
water harvest is taken into consideration, the water harvested from the
impermeable surfaces here can be used to meet many needs in the city. The
regulations allow water harvest from a minimum of 1000 m2, so the source of
water reaching up to millions of m2 offered by the transportation corridors
in the city is worth considering. Water harvested from road corridors in this
way can be transported through the drainage structures mentioned in the
technical specifications of General Directorate of Highways, or can be cleaned
further, filtered, and partially sent back to nature and collected in swales. The
water running through the swales can be filtered once more in the clovers on
the median strips on the highways or in the water capturing ponds built in
its route and offered to the use of the city. The wetland created by the water
coming from such a large surface forms a habitat for the fauna, and it can also
be transformed into recreation areas for people where they walk around and
have a rest.

Year 1 / Issue 2 / July 2022 52