Mayor of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Tunç Soyerexamined the pilot implementation of the Sponge City Izmir project in Bornova, which will expand its rainwater harvesting activities with the vision of combating drought. Mayor Soyer also met with the representatives of the district municipalities for the dissemination of the project throughout İzmir and said, “We are the first municipality to do this in Turkey. We are proud, but this needs to become widespread in districts and other cities as well.”
Mayor of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Tunç Soyer, examined the first implementation of the Sponge City Izmir project, which was implemented for the first time in Turkey with the vision of “Another Water Management is Possible”. Mayor Soyer, who went to Çamkıran Sitesi Öğün Apartment in the Bornova Manavkuyu neighborhood, which installed the rain water tanks donated by the Metropolitan Municipality on its roof, spoke with the citizens who welcomed the project. During the field trip, the residents of the surrounding apartments also conveyed their demands for rain water tanks to the bureaucrats of the Metropolitan Municipality.
Izmir Metropolitan Municipality decided to give rain water tanks to the first 5 thousand buildings that applied to support the houses and workplaces that will collect rain water. 10 thousand citizens who applied for the "10 thousand rain gardens for İzmir" campaign will be given plants to plant in the rain garden they will build. The application process for the project continues. Izmir residents who want to benefit from the rain water tank and rain gardens incentive system can apply at “sungerkent.izmir.bel.tr”.
It is used for garden irrigation and cleaning.
The rain water tanks located in Öğün Apartment in Çamkıran Site collect the rain water falling on a building with a 300 square meter roof area. There are 3 warehouses with a volume of 2 cubic meters each. Residents of the site use the harvested rain water for garden irrigation and cleaning of the site and apartment.
“Then it may be late”
President Tunç Soyerhosted the meeting attended by the technical unit representatives of the district municipalities in order to spread the Sponge City Izmir project throughout the city after the field trip. At the meeting held at the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality Assembly Hall in Kültürpark, information was given about the Sponge City İzmir project and its technical implementation guide. to the meeting Bayraklı Mayor Serdar Sandal and bureaucrats of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality also attended. Minister Tunç SoyerMentioning that the Sponge City project was initiated by the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality for the first time in Turkey, he said, “We are proud of this, but it needs to be spread. Our district municipalities and other metropolitan municipalities should do the same. As a result, we will face more drought. By then it may be too late. We need to come up with other solutions as well,” he said.
“We must work together”
Emphasizing that humanity is facing an incredible threat of drought, President Soyer said, “We are facing a very serious situation. This is a project we have done based on the idea of how we can deal with this with our own institutional capacity, how we can lighten this story. This is not just limited to storm water tanks and storm gardens. Last week, we held a meeting in Ödemiş to distribute around 2 cisterns to collect rainwater in the fields. But this requires an all-out struggle. That's why we need the support of each of you regarding the idea of creating a Sponge City. We have an obligation to walk with the support and cooperation of our municipalities, especially in the metropolitan districts of İzmir.”
Technical guide shared
İzmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Advisor and Geological Engineer Alim Murathan stated that the project was realized thanks to the vision of Mayor Soyer and said, “Our President held the introductory meeting of the project on 26 December. We received very positive feedback from all over Turkey. Many people, academics and scientists, not only from Turkey but also from Africa, Australia and England, said that they were extremely pleased with the launch of such a project in Turkey. The originality of our work is that; we planned to build the Sponge City on the basic infrastructure of this city. We made an urban analysis, taking into account the challenges of the city and the opportunities it offers us. We tried to put forward a more holistic project based on this analysis.” Alim Murathan said, “We thought that everyone should be able to do the Sponge City pilot project and we prepared a technical guide. The guide is a guide. We are holding this meeting to share this guide with you.”
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