Water management in Brussels - Episode 3: Brussels, a sponge city
Channel: BXL Online
Date: 2022-07-05

For more than 150 years, most of the rivers and streams in Brussels have been transformed into sewage collectors. This was the case for the Senne, for example, when it was vaulted. As the city continues to urbanize and become more impermeable, rainwater very often ends up in the sewer; as if rain were a waste product, a disposable element.
While sewers are needed to evacuate wastewater, rainwater - not or little polluted - saturates them unnecessarily. Thus, in the event of heavy rainfall, the sewers overflow into the lower parts of the valleys, causing flooding that affects a large number of citizens. This problem is likely to be exacerbated by the increased frequency and intensity of rainfall due to climate change...
Various solutions exist: rain gardens, ditches, ponds, tanks, etc. allow water to infiltrate into the soil, to be absorbed by vegetation or to be stored and used where drinking water is not needed. These devices can be created in public space, on private plots or be common to several plots... helping to make Brussels a sponge city.
Water must be preserved and valued. It must be given back its full place in the urban environment. We must manage rainwater as a precious resource, not anymore as a waste.