At the moment, the Vienna Woods streams flow underground through Vienna. However, open stretches would have great potential — they could serve as local recreational spaces within the city, their vegetation would provide shade, and their water could be used for irrigation. A project is currently investigating which stream could be reactivated.

Viennese street names such as Alszeile or Krottenbachstraße still recall the Vienna Woods streams that once flowed here and have since been routed underground. The streams are only visible at the city's outskirts, where they then disappear into the drainage system, says Magdalena Holzer from Weatherpark, an engineering consultancy for meteorology. If you pay attention, she says, you can still make out the former course of the streams from the urban morphology — from the wide road layouts or the differences in ground level. "At Tiefer Graben, for instance, the Ottakringer Bach used to flow."

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