THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED

Each semester the Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning Colloquium (LD ARCH 253, Instructor: Matt Kondolf) brings together distinguished speakers (professionals, academics, practitioners, and graduate students) to present projects relevant to the landscape architecture and environmental planning professions. The colloquium attracts a diverse group of students from the College of Environmental Design, and the entire Berkeley community is invited to attend.

Yociel Marrera
Project Manager, Almendares River Clean-up/Metropolitan Park of Havana, Cuba

"River Restoration and Urban Revitalization Opportunities on the Rio Almendares, Havana"

River corridors through cities can provide important open-space, social, and recreational values, and if large enough, can provide flood conveyance whilst minimizing conflicts with human uses, improve water quality by filtering runoff from uplands and through uptake of nutrients from groundwater, and provide habitat for wildlife. Even rivers whose banks have been encroached by dense urban development can have a new lease on life as de-industrialization frees urban waterfronts and allows cities to reconnect people with the water. Most cities in Cuba are traversed by rivers whose pollution levels are so bad as to discourage developments linking people to the rivers. However, looking forward to future improvements in water quality, it makes sense to plan for river corridors that can serve multiple functions, and whose potential is not impaired by poorly-planned development within the bottomlands.

The Almendares River drains a 400-km2 basin and flows through western Havana, forming the border between the El Vedado and Miramar districts. Much of its floodplain is undeveloped and set aside as parkland (the Metropolitan Park of Havana), but is currently underutilized, with informal trails, invasive exotic plant species, and a palimsest of land uses. Based on analysis of current and historical maps and aerial photographs, review of existing information, consultation with relevant agencies, field inventory of physical, ecological, and social conditions, and previous planning efforts, we assessed constraints upon and opportunities for restoration of the Almendares River. The river and its valley bottom have tremendous potential as open space parkland, urban agriculture, public education, and a continuous pedestrian and bicycle trail connecting southern suburbs with the Maricon. To reach its potential, we identify five key elements: (1) improve water quality in the river (through collection and treatment of sanitary sewage, and implementation of environmental stormwater runoff approaches), (2) re-operation of upstream dams to release minimum flows for water quality and environmental needs, (3) planning bottomland use to convey floodwaters (recognizing that floods are likely to increase with future urbanization of the catchment and climate change), (4) locate a continuous trail along the river through the reach designated as the Metropolitan Park (can mostly occupy the bottomlands, with only a few points where it will need to climb valley walls), (5) provide good access points connected to transportation routes (arterial streets and bus lines) with parking, sanitary facilities, and cafés to facilitate and encourage use of the park and trail by commuters and for recreation, and (6) re-develop abandoned industrial sites and other disused facilities along the river to attract and support public use, as conference, museum/public education, restaurant, and light industry/office facilities.