A NEW VISION ON THE CITY’S DEVELOPMENT
A NEW VISION ON THE CITY’S DEVELOPMENT
EN1
Valley of Rio Infulene
Magoanine depression
Railway
The floodplain can host a productive agroforestry system in combination with smaller scale urban functions like a mangrove nursery where young seedlings can be grown and replanted in a larger scale mangrove rehabilitation program along the coast.
The previous book gave an overview of past and present developments in Maputo City, and highlighted some of the plans for the future generic expansion. The landscape conditions are clearly subordinate to the economical and territorial interests of the Mozambican government. Zooming in on certain areas in the urban tissue we looked at how landscape influences people’s perception of the city and organizes their daily realities through opportunities and natural disasters. The landscape gives and takes, and the life of a large part of the city’s population resonates heavily with it. This became very clear during our fieldwork explorations. In this small leaflet we give our own vision of how the future of the city can be further based on specific characteristics of places in relation with topography, soil conditions, water and forest systems. A conceptual section through the most expressive areas gives an overview of the dynamics that have the potential to reinterpret the city provided that they are given a little push. A few interventions have the ability to catalyze a process through time in which the scales are tipped in favour of a symbiotic relation with the landscape instead of the bipolar relation that exists today.
Nicolaas Van Orshoven Laura Ysenbaardt
Booklet 2 2013-2014
Left: chart where our conceptual section through the city is taken. Right: Sketch of our vision for the city based on the idea of afforestation on the transition zones between high and lower city and capacity for flood events while at the same time altering the water cycle for urban agriculture.
Productive agroforestry in the low-lying floodplain
Forest patches and extended urban agriculture
New canal hierarchy in Magoanine depression
A gradual slope makes the transition between higher city and the low-lying valley of Rio Infulene. A system of newly implemented forest ‘patches’ is proposed as an addition to the already existing larger green elements situated on this slope, like the military domain and the old Portuguese zoo. The irrigation
The Magoanine intradune depression acts like a stormwater catchment basin during cyclone season and thus experiences regular flooding due to a high water table. However, even the lowest, most unfavourable areas are occupied at an increasing rate by the growing population in search of available land and possibilities for small-scale urban agriculture. The gradual implementation of a water draining canal system on the hillslopes
network in the valley of Rio Infulene will be extended and enhanced to avoid saline intrusion further inland in order to increase crop field productivity. Hence the city’s food production is safeguarded against changing climatic conditions and the vegetable growers can expand their agricultural activities.
Afforestation on the steep eastern escarpment can reconcile between people and landscape. The alteration of the water cycle builds capacity to withstand heavy storms during the wet season while at the same time purifying domestic wastewater during the remainder of the year. Combined with water-related functions such as sanitary blocks, laundry stations, private boreholes and water retention basins the infrastructural intervention enables a symbiotic relation with the water.
Whereas before the eastern escarpment was a demarcated border, the slope is nowaday been conquered by people who start living on less favourable land like floodplains and slopes due to an increasing land use pressure. An afforestation program is proposed on this escarpment, that makes the transition between higher (formal) and lower (informal) city and tries to re-integrate the escarpment as a part of the city while at the same time inducing a densification of the informal urban tissue on the slope.
Floodplain
Mangrove rehabilitation and dune forest expansion The seedlings that are grown in the mangrove nursery are part of a mangrove rehabilitation program along the Costa do Sol in order to preserve and protect the fragile (disappearing) ecosystems. At the same time the coastal dune forest, on the transition between the Xefina dune formations and the Indian ocean, will be expanded inwards to protect Maputo’s coastline from further erosion due to sea level rise, tidal events and natural disasters.
Mangrove
Coastal dune forest