An open-source project in Berlin, Gieß den Kiez, which translates to “water your neighbourhood”, is enabling residents to care for urban trees. The interactive map tracks more than 900,000 trees across Berlin, calculating their water needs based on age, species, and local rainfall. This real-time data helps volunteers coordinate watering efforts.
The platform, operational since 2020, currently has 12,000 registered volunteers. These efforts supplement the work of district authorities, which struggle to keep up with watering demands during increasingly hot summers in Berlin. Anna Mehrländer, who leads the project, noted a significant peak in watering activity at the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020, with nearly half a million litres poured.
The Gieß den Kiez project's open-source design means it can be adopted by any city globally, provided a dataset of local trees is available. Residents in Potsdam, Leipzig, Magdeburg, and the 17th arrondissement of Paris have already launched their own versions. The platform could also be replicated in the UK.