Are our cities beyond repair?

TreePeople doesn’t think so.

As part of its Natural Urban Systems Group, TreePeople has created demonstration projects employing technologies that mimic the “sponge-and-filter” function of trees. These projects demonstrate an elegant, sustainable way of addressing many of the region’s resource problems, from water quality and supply issues, to air quality and energy use with the additional benefits of:

- improved water quality;
- a decreased risk of flooding;
- a reduced need for water importation;
- heat-island effect mitigation;
- a reduction in contributions to global climate change; and
- an augmented supply of local groundwater.

"These are just some of the benefits that are possible when urban sites are allowed to work in concert with nature’s cycles of flood, drought and waste – and together, they create a sharp improvement in the quality of life in the neighborhoods in which we live, learn, work and play."

TreePeople has partnered with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, and the City of Los Angeles to create a large-scale sustainable watershed management demonstration project in a 2700-acre San Fernando Valley watershed. The underserved and economically depressed Sun Valley community has long had a serious flooding problem. The L.A. County Department of Public Works diverted funds from a proposed $42-million storm drain and instead began the process of retrofitting the entire watershed in accordance with the principles of sustainable watershed management.

Resources:
The newly published report Rainwater as a Resource (external link) shares the details of utilizing these concepts and sheds light on the many opportunities to implement the wide array of available technologies. TreePeople has published this report to promote the use of these principles as a means of moving cities closer to sustainability.

see the YouTube VIDEO Tree People's Green Solutions
(external link)

For more information, go to the
Tree People website