Rainwater harvesting and eco-gardens: how one Colombian neighbourhood helped a whole city plan for climate change

Informal hillside settlements in Medellín are at increasing risk of flooding and landslides as the climate changes. Photograph: Handout

In his home on a steep hillside in the neighbourhood of Golondrinas in Medellín, Róbinson Velásquez Cartagena stands proudly next to two large tanks of water – a rainwater harvesting system he designed and built to help reduce the risk of flooding and landslides.

It is one of the nature-based solutions that Velásquez and others in the community have proposed as part of a disaster risk and climate crisis adaptation plan for Comuna 8, a growing informal settlement of 150,000 people in Colombia’s second-largest city.