Gwangju City to Invest 20 Billion Won by 2022 to Create 'Urban Wind Path Forest'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 1st that it will invest a total of 20 billion KRW (10 billion KRW from the national government and 10 billion KRW from the city) from this year until 2022 to create an ‘Urban Wind Path Forest’.

The wind path forest is a forest that linearly connects forests scattered within the city and forests on the outskirts of the city to draw in clear and cool air into the urban area, induce air circulation, and discharge air pollutants such as fine dust and hot air.

This project is being promoted by the Korea Forest Service targeting 17 cities and provinces nationwide to reduce fine dust and mitigate urban heat islands, and Gwangju City started the design phase this year.

Gwangju plans to create urban forests that contribute to reducing fine dust and mitigating urban heat islands by creating pathways through which naturally occurring cold air, depending on the topographical conditions of urban spaces such as outer urban mountains, city parks, and green belts, can flow into residential areas in living zones and induce air circulation.

Accordingly, currently, considering various conditions such as land cover, terrain, and wind direction, the wind paths are being analyzed, and together with autonomous districts, sites for wind path forests are being surveyed focusing on shared land and public facilities.

In particular, potential sites for forest creation around public institutions are being explored from multiple angles.

Once the wind path analysis and design of the target sites are completed, various types of urban forests such as wind generation forests, wind connection forests, and stepping/spreading forests will be created by 2022.

The ‘wind generation forest’ will be created so that purified cold wind blows through forest management in the outer urban forests, and the ‘stepping/spreading forest’ will be created as a key urban forest by generating breezes through temperature differences.

The ‘connection forest’ will function to connect the wind generation forest and the stepping/spreading forest through double planting of street trees and other methods.

Jung Dae-kyung, head of the city’s Parks and Greenery Division, said, “Once this project is completed, it is expected that cold air will flow into the increasingly hot Gwangju area, resulting in effects such as improved urban landscape and suppression of urban temperature rise.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.