Grim report on the state of the environment in Bucharest: The capital city is suffocating under filth, heavy traffic and lack of green spaces

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Romania’s capital is suffocated by construction work, filth and lack of green spaces, and experts recommend reinventing urban mobility and developing public policies to improve sanitation. These are the conclusions of an independent report on the state of the environment in Bucharest, carried out by independent expert Prof. Cristian Iojă, at the request of the Bucharest Community Foundation and quoted by Agerpres.

The report comes amid constant complaints from Bucharest residents about the city’s squalor, the neglect of large parks and green spaces.

According to the document, the capital has become a city suffocated by construction, which contributes to air pollution, noise, stress, and the phenomenon of heat island (areas with higher temperatures), reduced tourist and economic opportunities for the service sector and for investors, and reduced attractiveness and quality of life for its own residents.

Access the full report „State of the Environment in Bucharest” (available in Romanian only)

„Often, the proportion of green areas, the connection to the sewage network, the height regulation and the volume do not comply with minimum urban planning rules,” the report states. The researcher recommends better organization and planning of the developed space.

Another problem identified in the expert report concerns the very high number of cars in Bucharest and urban mobility dominated by the private car, „together with the absence of adequate parking spaces”. According to the experts, all this „leads to pollution, noise, risk of accidents, poor sanitation, degradation of green spaces, degradation of pavements and personal movement spaces”. The recommended course of action is to reinvent urban mobility, with a focus on making public transport more efficient, extending cycle lanes and tackling the parking problem.

According to the source, Bucharest is a city suffocated by filth. „The problem is so complex that it starts with waste management and goes all the way to the filth in public spaces: abandoned buildings and land, dirty green spaces and water bodies, very slow intervention in repairing public infrastructures, the increasing phenomenon of dirty buildings, lack of public toilets in densely circulated areas, improvised parking lots. The city is almost impossible to clean up,” the document states. As a solution for the authorities, it is proposed to develop public policies to improve sanitation, linking actions and stakeholders so as to allow concerted action for public sanitation.

The expert report also notes that Bucharest is becoming a city suffocated by a lack of greenery and a disconnection from nature, „which contributes to pollution, stress, rising temperatures, limited space for recreation and sports”. „Bucharest has few green spaces, unkempt and often inaccessible, below the limit of 26 sqm/inhabitant imposed by Romanian legislation, which dramatically affects the quality of life. Even when they are well cared for, the maintenance costs of green spaces are much higher than in Western European cities. The suburban areas of the city, including those where there are new residential projects, have very low accessibility to green spaces,” say the experts. To counter this problem, they propose: harnessing existing potential – wetlands, parks, green spaces between apartment buildings, the river, street trees -, adopting successful models from abroad, and imposing urban planning rules for new residential developments can help to remedy this problem.

In terms of air quality, the research reveals that Bucharest is a city that is suffocating from pollution, at a worrying cost to people’s health and quality of life. „Road traffic, electricity and heat production, industrial activities, illegal activities, construction sites and poor sanitation are the most important sources caused by human activity. Existing monitoring systems – both public and those promoted by civil society – show obvious problems with suspended particles and nitrogen dioxide, especially in winter,” the document says. The experts recommend, in this context, that reducing air pollution should become a priority objective for authorities, civil society, companies and citizens, based on the understanding that there is no single factor leading to this problem.

Main conclusions of the report:

• Bucharest has more biodiversity than we imagine. Nature is present in the most diverse ways and in the most unusual places in the city, from native animal and plant species to exotic ones. They are learning to live together in new ways.
• The city needs a unified management of green spaces and water spaces. At present, the management of green spaces is divided between the City Hall of Bucharest through the Administration of Lakes, Parks and Recreation or the recently established Administration of the Natural Park Văcărești and the sector city halls through the Public Domain Administrations, while cemeteries are managed by the Administration of Cemeteries or by different religious cults.
• Nature-based solutions should be encouraged and used in public spaces, not just private ones, as is the case now. This is about green walls, green roofs, gardens with plants for consumption, permeable areas, rainwater storage areas. Interest in urban agriculture and the development of experimental areas for its practice should be encouraged.
• Gardens around apartment buildings should be restored, including through the participation of residents. They provide large areas of green space but are often abandoned or underused.
• The accessibility of green spaces must be increased. The lack of a place to relax is a big problem, especially for those living in new housing developments, usually on the edge of town.
• Policies related to green spaces and lakes in Bucharest should be thought together with those around the city (Băneasa Forest, protected natural areas). Beyond the environmental benefits, this infrastructure would bring economic and social advantages.
• The diversity of tree species planted should be preserved. This requires prioritising local species (ash, yew, oak, elm), but also foreign species that have proved suitable for Bucharest (American red oak). These should replace invasive species, and halt the trend towards homogenisation, which is particularly noticeable in street alignments.
• Abandoned land should be ecologically rebuilt or at least maintained. They can connect the city’s green-blue infrastructure. These spaces – used in the past for agriculture, industrial platforms, housing or railways – are dominated by spontaneous vegetation. Their size is not yet quantified at the level of Bucharest.
• Bucharest needs to reconfigure and expand its water quality monitoring network. Concretely, this would mean creating new measuring points and adding to the list of substances analysed (e.g. disinfectants, microplastics).
• As the quality of surface water flowing through Bucharest is deteriorating, measures are needed to manage water intelligently. This includes nature-based solutions: water storage systems, water infiltration systems.
• Urban agriculture could help sustain ecological processes in the soil if it were practised more widely. To the same end, authorities and housing associations need to work to properly care for green spaces by introducing grass and shrubs in block gardens.

Translated from Romanian by Ovidiu H.