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Good practice Imported

Medellín's Green Corridors: 30 Urban Corridors Cut Street-Level Heat by 3.5°C

Colombia · Medellín · See the Colombia profile · See the Medellín profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 58% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Medellín turned 18 roads and 12 waterways into 30 shaded 'Corredores Verdes,' planting ~880,000 trees and 2.5 million smaller plants since 2016. A city evaluation recorded average street temperatures falling 3.5°C and PM2.5 and respiratory-infection rates dropping by 2019.

31.6C to 28.1C
Average air temperature along corridors (2016-2019)
40.5C to 30.2C
Average land-surface temperature (2016-2019)
21.81 to 20.26 ug/m3
PM2.5 concentration (2016-2019)
46.04 to 40.4 ug/m3
PM10 concentration (2016-2019)
159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 inhabitants
Acute respiratory infection morbidity rate (2016-2019)
20 km
Green corridor network length
107
Residents trained as gardeners
Medellín's Green Corridors: 30 Urban Corridors Cut Street-Level Heat by 3.5°C

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Medellín City Hall (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente) with Medellín Botanical Garden
Period
2016–2019 (evaluated), ongoing since 2016
Keywords
urban greening, climate adaptation, public health, green jobs

Context

Starting 2016, Medellin's city government and Botanical Garden converted 18 roads and 12 former waterways into an interconnected 20km network of 30 shaded 'Corredores Verdes' covering roughly 70 hectares.

Activities

The programme trained 107 residents of low-income neighbourhoods as gardeners and created roughly 2,600 jobs through a botanical-garden apprenticeship scheme, targeting hillside informal settlements with the least tree cover.

Results

By the city's own 2016-2019 monitoring, average air temperature along the corridors fell 3.5C (31.6C to 28.1C) and land-surface temperature fell 10.3C; PM2.5 fell from 21.81 to 20.26 ug/m3, PM10 from 46.04 to 40.4 ug/m3, and acute respiratory infection morbidity fell from 159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 inhabitants.

Conclusions

The city has not published the monitoring methodology in a peer-reviewed journal, so the causal share attributable to the corridors versus other city interventions is not fully isolated. It won the 2019 Ashden Award and is cited by UNEP and C40 as a replicable model.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Medellin Botanical Garden apprenticeship trainees, City Secretaria de Medio Ambiente

Conditions for success

  • Targeting hillside informal settlements with least tree cover
  • Apprenticeship-linked job creation for local residents

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Data sources

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