Those same materials, used to construct buildings and pave over the wetlands and streams that predated urban development, also repel water, leaving it nowhere to go. The asphalt and concrete that are the building blocks of the modern metropolis absorb heat, making heatwaves hotter. Most cities today are not built to handle the kind of extreme weather that climate change inflicts.
But as the visible part of the Austrian capital’s first “sponge city,” those trees, and the ingenious underground planters in which they grow, will soon play an important role in mitigating some of climate change’s worst effects.
Planted earlier in the year, the American ash and Bosnian maples were still scraggly enough by late July that they didn’t make a dent in the near-100º F temperatures. By themselves, the young trees lining a still barren boulevard in Vienna’s newest neighborhood hardly look like climate warriors.
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