Guimarães, the northern Portuguese city that holds this year’s European Green Capital title, has spent more than a decade knitting green space through its streets, and the work is paying off, Euronews reports.
The city’s plan links its historic centre to parks, farmland, forests and two rivers, the Ave and the Vizela, through a ring of green corridors. The riverbanks have been restored with low-impact footpaths so people can walk, relax and cool off along them. A Landscape Laboratory set up in 2014 by the council and two local universities steers the work.
The municipality says temperatures in parts of the city have dropped by about 2°C. A study using ten years of satellite images found that ground temperatures fell by up to 2.49°C where green roofs and urban gardens were added.
Guimarães is only the second Portuguese city to be named European Green Capital, after Lisbon, and its historic centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001.
Source: Euronews