A three-day mapathon to mark the city’s existing green cover and devise strategies to augment it will commence at St. Teresa’s College on Thursday.
The mapathon is being conducted under the Cities4Forests project, a global initiative by the World Resources Institute (WRI) which has partnered with the Kochi Corporation. The project envisages expanding green patches in cities and mitigating the impact of climate change by protecting wetlands and biodiversity.
Kochi is the only city in the country to have been selected for the project last year. In the first phase of the project, councillors from the Corporation’s 74 divisions along with local experts will participate in the mapathon which will identify current land use in the divisions using satellite images. Buildings, green patches, open spaces, waterbodies and roads will be mapped by WRI in consultation with the councillors after which they can identify areas in their divisions where trees can be planted. The three-day exercise will result in a map that can suggest spaces in the city that are conducive to the growth of green patches.
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In the second phase of the project, the Corporation will determine the implementation of the project and which trees are to be planted.