In Canada’s three largest cities, networks of rivers, brooks, creeks and streams exist beneath their surface. Once a key part of supporting life for Indigenous Peoples and early European colonizers, these became an obstacle in the 1900s’ rapid urbanization to be re-routed and covered in underground culverts.
Restoration of these buried waterways could help us address many issues caused by climate change and increased urbanization – cooling heat islands, absorbing carbon dioxide, cleaning the air, reducing flooding, and helping to support native biodiversity.
The School of Planning’s Dr. Luna Khirfan recently participated in a radio interview and interactive news piece with CBC to discuss the benefits of daylighting, that is, de-culverting, or restoring these natural waterways to their urban environments.
School of Planning faculty member Dr. Luna Khirfan