Case studies tagged with urban biodiversity

Biophysical analysis of public trees in Padova: biodiversity and ecosystem services

Padova is a city of around 210,000 in the north-eastern part of Italy. It is the third largest provincial capital of the Veneto region, and the most densely populated (average density 2300 inhabitants/km2). The city is located 20 km west from the Venetian lagoon at the extreme north-eastern border of the Po plain. The morphology of the territory and its key position at the crossroads of the routes that connect Venice to Milan and to Bologna has fostered the development of the city.

Soil sealing is among the main issues in Padova, where 49.3% of the municipal territory is urbanized:...More

Greening Rome for human and ecosystem health

“Roma as seen from Gianicolo Hill” by Mac9 - licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5

Within the EnRoute Project, the challenge of the City Lab of Rome is to apply the urban-MAES framework on a multi-scale progression.

In particular, the following policy questions have been addressed:

Improvement of air quality at the sub-municipality level (II District – II Municipio) according to the local demand for the service and compared to the metropolitan city context. This area is characterized by high air pollutant levels such as particulate matter and tropospheric ozone (Cattani et al., 2017; Manes & Sarigiannis, 2011), which often exceed air quality

Green roof at Office building 22@ Source: picharchitects

Rehabilitation of an existing building by adding, among other rehabilitation measures, a semi-public green space on the roof with a positive influence on the health of users, positive effects on urban climate against the heat island effect and positive effect on water by it storages in the deck space. It also improves the energy efficiency of the building by the insulation provided by the layers of green cover.

Operatie STEENBREEK

Operatie Steenbreek is a foundation that organizes awareness raising campaigns and offers assistance with regards to greening private gardens. Many gardens and streets in the Netherlands are covered with tiles that cannot absorp the rainwater from heavy rainfall.

The idea behind the initiative is to encourage citizens to remove the tiles and stones from their gardens/backyards and replace it with grass, plants and trees for better drainage and to increase the biodiversity.

Thanks to an app., citizens can be adviced and exchange plants with neighbours. Citizens can...

Farfalle in ToUr

The project promotes urban butterflies conservation, thanks to the involvement of fragile people as citizen scientists. It aims to create and connect Butterfly oasis, to allow butterflies to cross the city; and to involve people with mental or physical disabilities, to fight the social stigma

BIOTOPE CITY - the dense city as nature

Biotope City is an integral concept of the Biotope City Foundation Amsterdam based on the integrative combination of Flora + Fauna + Humans to realise the dense city as nature.

World's first official climate-resilient district and world's first constructed Biotope City in Vienna with 2/3 affordable social housing and climate adaptation by the support of GREENPASS - the world's first Software-as-a-Service for climate...

Urban Food Forest St. Urbanus

Mulching the lawn with wood chips to create a forest floor

A Food Forest is an artificial human designed forest that predominantly consists of edible plants and fruit-bearing bushes and trees.

CONEXUS (6.1) – Enhancing urban biodiversity through learning communities in the city of Buenos Aires

Breathe / Respirar Pilot - Photo credits: Veronica Fabio, 2020.

With a network of over 25 partners across public and non-government sectors, the Life-Lab establishes multidisciplinary communities of learning to investigate and co-design NbS in order to counter a palette of harmful effects of urbanisation in the MRBA. These include, among others, air pollution, environmental degradation, and habitat loss as well as diminishing natural stormwater treatment functions, soil permeability, and water retention capacities of urban ecosystems.

Via engaging actors with direct connections to local pilots, the Buenos Aires Life-Lab aims to drive faster...

CONEXUS (6.1) – Laboratorio BioUrbano, Santiago de Chile

NBS governance workshop, Santiago+ Green Infrastructure Plan. Credits: Felipe Labrae, 2023

Within the CONEXUS project, Santiago’s Life-Lab, Laboratorio BioUrbano, is an inter-sectoral partnership between academics, public institutions, private actors, and civil society. With the aim of co-producing urban nature-based solutions (NbS) to address the important challenges faced by the city, it proposes a series of interlinked objectives:

Improving biodiversity, water and soil health, especially in relation to the design of green space, e.g. ensuring the presence and diversity of native plant species, or water management;
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