Environmental sustainability is a key element for a Smart City to fully integrate and grow and develop responsibly.
“By using advanced technology and other innovations, we can shape a precinct that’s better equipped to address today’s urban challenges that often harm the environment,” says Louise de Roubaix, Environmental & Horticulture Manager at Century City Property Owners’ Association (CCPOA).
Intaka Island
One of our key focus areas, and most definitely a part of Century City that’s unique in terms of natural resources is its most precious natural treasure, Intaka Island, a 16ha wetland at the centre of the precinct. “The environmental protection of Intaka Island and its use as an environmental education classroom is key to the overall integration of people, development, and the sensitivities of true conservation, and is the foundation of our environmental sustainability philosophy.” explains De Roubaix.
Home to 231 species of indigenous plants, 120 bird species and several small terrestrial animals, Intaka Island has an internationally recognised heronry, is the starting point of Birdlife South Africa’s Flamingo Birding Route and is recognised as a voluntary conservation site by Cape Nature. “Another major feature of Century City is our canals,” says De Roubaix. “We have 8km canals running through the precinct, excluding the water bodies of Intaka Island and Ratanga Park. Our canals are a very sensitive and important part of Century City.”
De Roubaix explains that the construction of Intaka Island as a man-made wetland was not only to create a lush green lung for Century City, but as a method to clean and polish water by replenishing and circulating the canal water. “This provides a natural healthy environment for people, plants and animals alike. We conduct weekly and monthly sampling of the water, which is then sent away for testing at laboratories to ensure that we are meeting water quality standards. In addition, we harvest the aquatic plants that grow in the canals to ensure that the waterbody is fit for passive recreational purposes such as canoeing and our Intaka Island water taxis. Aquatic plants aid in the natural uptake of nutrients and the harvesting thereof plays an important role in removing excess nutrients in the water. This is critical for the balance of our Century City eco system.”
There are several ways that Century City, as a smart city, promotes environmental sustainability.
Smart signage
Smart parks use technology – environmental, digital, and materials – to achieve a series of values: equitable access, community fitness, enhanced health, safety, resilience, water and energy efficiency, and effective operations and maintenance.
“Free Wi-Fi spots are available across many of our public open spaces,” explains De Roubaix. “Visitors can enjoy free Wi-Fi in Central Park, Century City Square, Intaka Eco Centre, Intaka Nature Reserve, Manhattan Park, several walkways and Ratanga Park.”
Smart species labels were installed with QR codes for some plants and tree species in Ratanga Park, which takes you to Wikipedia with more info on each species.
Furthermore, detailed information signs will be installed soon. All will have QR codes taking you to Intaka Island’s and Century City’s pages respectively for more detailed information and species list. Park users can learn more about the park such as fish nurseries and fish species, aquatic plants, animal and bird species and plant and tree species.
A help pole where visitors can talk directly to the Service Operations Centre has been installed in Ratanga Park.
The multi-functional, energy-efficient Intaka Eco Centre can accommodate groups of up to 75 at a time and includes an assembly area, educational activity centre, conference facilities, reception, catering and ablution facilities.
“Our smart “Sustainable Living Best Practices” exhibits at Intaka Eco Centre facilitate environmental education and include a living green wall, freshwater fish tank, hydroponics, aquaponics, a worm farm, rainwater harvesting, a biodigester, a wind turbine, solar panels, and a renewable energy sources classroom,” says De Roubaix. “We installed four new interactive signs where visitors can use their senses (animal species), heronries, more than meets the eye (soil micro-organisms – to complement the soil tube exhibit) and the seasonal saltpan.”
Smart water
Essential to environmental sustainability is Century City’s approach to water use and water preservation. Water-saving devices for irrigation of parks, medians and gardens is a top priority and automated and computerised irrigation is in place to ensure that efficient watering takes place in cooler times of the day and seasons.
With 27 290m² of landscaped gardens and 53 193m² of lawned areas, and a further 12 719m² of vacant land on which exotic invasive species control takes place, it’s no small task to maintain Century City’s greenery. Ratanga Park, adds an additional 5ha of park area and a 1.7ha water body.
“We have been making use of treated effluent water for irrigation and toilets for 20 years, but we always look at ways to improve and make our way of doing things smarter,” says Gordon Ralph, Facilities and Infrastructure Manager at CCPOA. “We’re currently implementing of a high-tech upgrade to our irrigation system that would give us access to real-time intelligent information on our wide-spread irrigation system. This would include leak detection, detecting where sprayer heads are broken and so on.”
Ralph says that treated effluent is pumped to Century City from the Potsdam Water Works where it undergoes some further filtration and is then used for irrigation throughout Century City and for flushing toilets and in the air conditioning cooling towers in many of the green developments that have come on stream in recent years.
“In fact , close to 80% of all water consumed at Century City is from treated effluent. Another sustainable engineering solution Century City has been its canals. All stormwater which is collected from hard surfaces is cleaned and discharged into the canal system which then through some filtration dams further cleans and polishes the water. The canals are generally unlined therefore they recharge the water table before any excess stormwater is discharged into the municipal stormwater system.”
Integration of technology and our natural world
De Roubaix explains that using technology to improve knowledge of our natural world has become a key tool “The use of Google search or related apps to identify both horticultural plants for residents’ walking landscaped pathways and for fynbos species in Intaka Island Nature Reserve has taken education of our environment to a new level. There are also many apps for animal tracks and bird call identification. iNaturalist as an example, is a great app which promotes citizen science.”
“We increasingly use technology by digitising our landscaping designs and creating digital maps of all plants and trees in Century City. We’re always keeping an eye out for more ways to blend technology with our efforts.”
Intaka Island currently has a camera trap which provides very useful footage, such as the nocturnal activity of the resident caracal, and there are also dome cameras across the Island providing 24/7 live feeds on the Intaka webpage. CCPOA also uses drone technology to map invasive species and ecological burns from aerial imagery.
“The use of Artificial Intelligence via Bioacoustics to further research and monitor local faunal species is our next goal,” says De Roubaix, “Phase one will include the monitoring of several predefined vocal bird species by placing AudioMoth sound recorders around the island and phase two will be real-time call detectors. This project is anticipated to set the standard within the global conservation community for real-time monitoring.”
