Benjamin Peter / Photo credit: Benjamin Peter 12:05pm, April 28, 2023

- Reduce the effect of heat waves on the inhabitants. The mission is crucial for cities and towns, as the effects of global warming are increasingly visible. Among the preferred tracks: greening, as in Elne, where a car park in the city center has given way to plants.

The consequences of climate change have become reality. In the Pyrénées-Orientales, drought is pushing villages to organize themselves to find solutions. In addition to drought, the south of France is facing ever hotter summers. So, to reduce the effect of a heat island and better retain rainwater, the small town of Elne was seduced by greening.

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Retain water

Now, in the center of the village, a parking lot has given way to sorghum and phacelia, plants that do not need much water. On top of their roots, a beautiful layer of grind will turn into humus to retain rainwater. Objective: to apply the concept of sponge city to this Pyrenean municipality.

"The goal is to retain water when there is a lot of rain and then release it in times of drought. It makes it possible to create islands of freshness and beyond that, it is more than important today to put plants back in the city, explains to the microphone of Europe 1, André Trives, the municipal councillor in charge of agroecology.

Other parking spaces soon to be vegetated

And the latter insists: "To continue to mineralize is to shoot yourself in the foot". But there is no question of imposing the disappearance of parking spaces on residents. "It's a change from the bulk parking lot that there was before here," says Claude, who lives opposite. The latter participated in this citizen project to green the square and says he is delighted with his new living environment.

"The fact that the population participates, creates a momentum towards this trend to better understand and encourage it," he told Europe 1. Motorists are invited to park a hundred meters away, on the outskirts of the city center. Other squares could thus be vegetated to allow Elne to better weather periods of heat and drought in the years to come.