Transforming cities, enhancing well-being through nature-based solutions (NBS). The EU- led mission towards the urban green transformation
Elisabeth Schmid, Charlotte Michi
Nature based solutions to mitigate soil sealing in urban areas: Results from a 6-year study comparing permeable, porous, and impermeable pavements
Alessio Fini, Piero Frangi, Jacopo Mori, Cecilia Brunetti, Francesco Ferrini
Green infrastructures and associated policies improve urban sustainability: a case study in Melbourne
Andrea Pianella, Judy Bush
Stormwater management and blue-green infrastructure for improved urban forests. Climate Change Adaptation in Cities - experience from Denmark and Poland Malgorzata Buszko-Briggs, Iwona Wagner, Marzenna Rasmussen, Lars Briggs
Urban forest expansion is predicted to reduce the air temperature impacts of urban heat islands
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Transforming cities, enhancing well-being through nature-based solutions
(NBS). The EU-led mission towards the urban green transformation
Elisabeth Schmid*, Charlotte Michi URBAN GreenUP project
Cities have become a point of intersection of problems characterized by complexity and uncertainty, among which are the negative effects of climate change, increasing physical and psychological health problems, inequality, alienation, dwindling economic opportunities for many, social fragmentation and conflict. Against this background, NBS are proposed as a unifying concept that could capture both the end goals and the pathways to support transitions to healthy and sustainable communities in urban environments. Introducing nature and natural processes into urban areas not only provide environmental, social and economic benefits but also help build resilience and climate adaptation. Thirteen H2020 European projects have undertaken the complex task of implementing and assessing the effects of these types of solutions. All together they support a network of more than 60 cities and communities in Europe, Asia and Latin America leading the way towards a green urban transformation and climate change mitigation by Nature. Clustering together, representatives from local governments and communities, investors, academia, and industry working in these projects aim at:
• enhancing well-being and inclusion through co-creation and co-implementation • providing evidence-based and open access knowledge for NBS
• co-producing a monitoring approach for NBS performance
• defining and overcoming barriers (scientific, technical, political, legal, social, economic) • exploring new business and investment models for large scale deployment of NBS • promoting the creation of a global NBS market
Case studies experienced in diverse geographical and social contexts will be presented and the signature of a NBS projects’ Cooperation Manifesto will be announced. The H2020 cluster’s activity has been launched in the framework of the EU Research and Innovation policy agenda on Nature- Based Solutions and Re-Naturing Cities, aiming at positioning the EU as leader in ‘Innovating with nature’ for more sustainable and resilient societies.
Keywords: Nature-based solutions, re-naturing cities, sustainable urbanisation *Corresponding author: Elisabeth Schmid, [email protected]
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Nature based solutions to mitigate soil sealing in urban areas: Results from a 6-
year study comparing permeable, porous, and impermeable pavements
Alessio Fini1*, Piero Frangi2, Jacopo Mori3, Cecilia Brunetti4, Francesco Ferrini3
1. Department of Agricultural and Environmental Science – Production, Landscape, Agroenergy, University of Milan via Celoria 2, Milan (Italy)
2. Fondazione Minoprio, viale Raimondi 54, Vertemate con Minoprio (CO), Italy
3. Department of Agrifood Production and Environmental Sciences, University of Florence, viale delle Idee 30, Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy
4. Trees and Timber Institure, National Research Council of Italy, via Madonna del Piano 10, Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy
A long-term research was started in 2011 to evaluate the effects on four different pavement systems on two woody species and on soil physical traits. 48 plants of Celtis australis and Fraxinus ornus were planted in a 1 m2 planting pit surrounded by 50 m2 of: 1- impermeable pavement (asphalt on concrete sub-base); 2- permeable pavement (pavers on a crushed rock sub-base); 3- porous pavement (monolithic porous pavement on a crushed rock sub-base); 4- no pavement (bare soil kept free of weeds by herbicides). Effects of the different pavements on growth and physiology of establishing trees have been described in a previous work. Trees have now fully established, showing most of their roots outside the planting pit, right under the pavements. The presentation will describe the results of the long-term measurements of tree growth (shoot and diameter growth, canopy size), phenology (leaf shedding, dormancy outbreak), and physiology (leaf gas exchange, water relations), which have been carried out on regular basis on 6 replicate trees per treatment. Effects observed on trees have been related to changes induced by pavements on soil characteristics (e.g. oxygen, CO2, water availability). Also, interestingly, the effect of pavements on the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by tree species has been investigated. Results have shown that soil physical traits have been largely affected by impermeable pavements, with a significant reduction of evaporation of water from soil resulting in the onset of a subterranean urban heat island. On the contrary, porous pavements were extremely effective in maintaining soil temperature similar to that of unpaved soil. Furthermore, under impermeable pavements CO2 accumulates, with negative effects on root activity, but porous pavements can largely mitigate this CO2 enrichment. Indeed, the effects of the different on growth and physiology of ash and hackberry will be discussed in detail in the presentation.
Keywords: Celtis australis, Fraxinus ornus, Soil CO2 concentration, Soil moisture, Soil temperature *Corresponding author: Alessio Fini, [email protected]
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Green infrastructures and associated policies improve urban sustainability: a
case study in Melbourne
Andrea Pianella*, Judy Bush The University of Melbourne
Global cities are becoming more crowded and dense, and there is pressure on areas designated for urban parks and green spaces to be replaced with commercial and residential buildings to meet city’s growth. As cities lose greenery, their sustainability and liveability decrease, while urban demand for energy and water increases. These demands are pushing scientists, policy makers and practitioners to find prompt solutions to counterbalance the detrimental effects of the rapid urbanisation within and around the city boundaries. As such, practices and policies are being developed to retain and maximise urban greenery and integrate it within buildings. The integration of green infrastructures and renewable applications into building and precinct design is helping to reduce the environmental impacts of urbanisation on people and environment and provide a number of ecosystem services, such as air pollution removal, water and energy reduction, stormwater and urban heat island mitigation, social and recreation provision. Melbourne is considered one of the most liveable cities in the world. In recent years, a number of improvements have been delivered from technical (science) and governmental (policy) perspectives. Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) techniques, such as rain gardens and nature strips, were introduced to reduce stormwater runoff and increase water retention; green infrastructures, such as green roofs, walls and façades, were installed to decrease building energy consumption, mitigate urban heat island effect and provide recreational and social spaces. In this paper, we present and analyse the qualitative and quantitative contributions of these improvements across Melbourne metropolitan areas. We investigate future scenarios on the basis of city policy, planning and development (i.e. Melbourne’s Urban Forest Fund, 202020 Vision), and, finally, explore transferability and relevance for other cities.
Key words: Green infrastructure; Sustainability; Liveability; Policy; Melbourne. *Corresponding author: Andrea Pianella, [email protected]
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Stormwater management and blue-green infrastructure for improved urban
forests. Climate Change Adaptation in Cities - experience from Denmark and
Poland
Malgorzata Buszko-Briggs*1, Iwona Wagner 2, 3, Marzenna Rasmussen 4, Lars Briggs 2, 5 1. Forestry Department, FAO
2. FPP Enviro, Warsaw, Poland
3. University of Lodz, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, Lodz, Poland 4. Amphi Consult, Odense, Denmark
Urban forest can provide multiple economic, environmental, and social benefits. At the same time, as part of urban space, they are exposed to progressing urbanization, increased temperature in urbanspace, fragmentation and isolation, which all result in their increasing vulnerability, loos of biodiversity and decrease of provision of nature’s contribution to people (NCP)Additionally, in many areas in the world urban forests turn to be limited by water shortage. Urban drought periods are becoming longer and deeper, resulting from climate change and still prevailing traditional water management, immediately removing stormwater from the city landscape via drainage systems. Such approach reduces the amount of the water available for trees and urban forests, which impacts their growth and health, and ability to cope with the urban stress and climate change impacts. The alternative approach is provided by storing and using stormwater in urban landscape through Nature Based Solutions approach and Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) measures, which can substantially improve urban forests and theirs contribution to resilient cities. This article will present innovative measures from Denmark and Poland on designing and building BGI solutions for handling rain water to prevent flush-flooding and improve urban forests, enhanced by the smart use of biodiversity. Experiences gained within the EU LIFE RADOMCLIMA Project (LIFE14 CCA/PL000101), REALDANIA Innovation project (KLIMASPRING.DK) and EU Horizon 2020 RECONNECT Project “Regenerating ECOsystems with Nature-based solutions for hydro-meteorological risk rEduCTion” will be presented. The measures developed within these projects improve urban space by on-site stormwater retention, infiltration and evaporation, and enhance biodiversity. They offer a powerful tool for local stormwater storage, adaptation to increasing urbanization and climate change pressures. The paper will also present community participatory experiences, which are developed in order to assure long sustainability of the project ecological effects through awareness riding, institutional capacity building and strategic planning exercises.
Key words: Urban forest, water, climate change, Nature Based Solutions, Blue-Green Infrastructure *Corresponding author: Malgorzata Buszko-Briggs, [email protected]
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Urban forest expansion is predicted to reduce the air temperature impacts of
urban heat islands
Theodore Endreny*, Dave Nowak
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, New York SDA Forest Service, Syracuse, New York
Urban forests in megacities reduce extreme air temperatures through transpiration and latent heat of vaporization, and increases in urban forest cover could therefore reduce night time high temperatures and mitigate the human health impacts of urban heat islands. This study quantified the potential reductions in both maximum and minimum diurnal air temperature by existing and potential urban forest cover. Surveys of urban forest cover, and potential urban forest cover, were performed using a systematic photo-interpretation of megacity aerial imagery. Potential urban forest cover could include green infrastructure installations, where trees are strategically located to provide ecosystem services, such as capture stormwater or other benefits. Diurnal maximum and minimum air temperatures were estimated with i-Tree Cool, using a mechanistic simulation of the hydrologic and energy budgets for the urban forest, including interception of precipitation, transpiration of soil water, and partitioning of net radiation into sensible and latent heat fluxes. The study findings show how urban forest cover, potential cover, and benefits of urban forest cooling varies with cultural patterns of development, e.g., urban canyon geometries, and ecosystem biome, e.g., tree physiology and water availability. The benefits of urban forest cooling were quantified using multiple metrics, including sensible heat, sensible heat with humidity in a heat index, cooling degree days, and incidences of heat waves. In addition to the benefits of cooling, the study estimated how urban forest cover contributed to avoided carbon emissions and reductions in additional temperature forcing. An expansion of urban forests is recommended to achieve the maximum benefits from urban forests for reduction of urban heat island impacts. The conservation and expansion of urban forests, including with green infrastructure, are nature based solutions for maintaining urban environments of the future, and are of high priority in our global megacities in order to benefit the greatest number of people.
Keywords: urban heat island, urban forest, transpiration, cooling air, megacities *Corresponding author: Theodore Endreny, [email protected]
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