An open-source app has thousands of Berliners adopting and watering city trees as if they were their pets, helping keep the city green amid repeated summer heatwaves.
Gieß den Kiez translates to “water your neighborhood,” and offers users a map of the city with each one of the roughly 900,000 street trees of Berlin accessible as GPS pins. Users can sign up to adopt one, and in doing so receive real-time watering instructions based on the species, age, weather data, and location.
Trees in need of watering appear as orange or red dots, and the app also has icons for all citizen-accessible streetside water taps or pumps.
In green-minded Europe, trees are increasingly being seen as vital urban infrastructure rather than simple tools for beautification. Berlin saw temperatures of over 103°F (39°C) this summer, and the cooling effect provided by a tree canopy is more than just a pleasant relief, but a potential lifesaver.
Developed by CityLAB Berlin, Water your Neighborhood has been running since 2020, and benefited from the cabin fever suffered by the population during the city’s COVID-19 lockdowns. The opportunity to get out of the house and connect with nature—however limited—was welcome, and often stuck.
“It feels very fun, almost like a video game,” Amanda Gläser-Bligh, a suburban Berliner who uses the app, told the Guardian. “I think many people may want to water the trees, but they might feel weird about doing it or they’re not sure if it’s their responsibility. But, if you have this app encouraging you, you know it’s the right thing to do.”
The app’s developers describe it as helping people to think of trees like their pets, and allows them to care for them as such.
Yet it’s proved to be far more than just a novel pastime. Already, Potsdam, Leipzig, Magdeburg, and the 17th arrondissement of Paris have used the open-source code to launch their own versions of the application.
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Trees seem at present to be one of the best ways of offering relief to denizens of cities experiencing summers hotter than historical norms. Trees provide shade, improve air quality, and reduce city temperatures on hot days. One American study showed that US counties with improved tree cover spend less on healthcare costs, while an Australian study found that communities with a healthy amount of tree cover—not just grass and green space—were psychologically healthier than those that didn’t.
Other benefits are more subtle. Green, leafy trees can provide sensory relief in urban areas dominated by hard surfaces, right angles, glass and concrete, and intrusive, attention-seeking advertising.
Gläser-Bligh adopted a Linden she has since named “Linda,” a species which lends its name to a famous street in the German capital, and their pollen and nectar to the city’s bees.
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