00:01Guimarães, the current European green capital, is the second Portuguese city to receive the title after Lisbon.
00:07Behind this accolade lies more than a decade of work on green corridors, the restoration of watercourses and waste reduction.
00:14Known as the Cradle of the Nation, the city's historic centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001.
00:21It is in this thousand-year-old centre, built of stone and now facing summers of 40 degrees, that the
00:26city is trying to keep conditions livable.
00:28Across a municipality spanning 241 square kilometres and home to around 166,000 people.
00:36For Carlos Ribeiro, president of the Landscape Laboratory, redesigning cities is now a matter of public health.
00:42We have an increase of diseases and death related to heat waves, so we need to transform these cities.
00:51We need to design cities with better quality of life.
00:55And these cities are cities with great connectivity between green areas, but most important cities where people use these green
01:05areas, the parks.
01:07The city is developing a green infrastructure strategy based on a radial model, a network of corridors running outwards from
01:15the centre to connect parks, watercourses, farmland and forests.
01:19The aims include increasing green cover, promoting biodiversity and reducing urban heat islands.
01:26Water is essential to this purpose.
01:29The rivers are used for recreation as well as cooling.
01:33There are now low impact pedestrian paths along the banks.
01:36In summer, the temperature in Guimarães can easily reach 40 degrees Celsius.
01:42So, we know that we have climate changes and we need to act for.
01:48And this is why in the last years we are preparing the city for the climate changes and trying to
01:56improve connectivity, to improve, to enhance the green areas and to reduce the temperature.
02:02We were able to reduce the temperature by 2 degrees.
02:07So, we know that we need to create more green parks, more green areas and then that we need to
02:16improve this kind of solutions.
02:18A study by the Landscape Laboratory and the University of Minho in collaboration with American universities shows that land surface
02:26temperatures fell by up to 2.49 degrees Celsius in areas where green roofs and urban gardens were introduced.
02:34However, the authors warn that stronger environmental policies will be needed to maintain the progress made so far.
02:41If you're considered a color, there are no differences when the touch-wise, there will be no uncertainties.
02:47If you're gonna find thegate-up cœur, there will be a number of Celsius.
