The Urban Nature Gateway has been created as part of INTERLACE, a research project funded by the European Union’s Horizon2020 programme. The project focused on fostering cooperation between Europe and Latin America around the restoration and rehabilitation of (peri)urban ecosystems with nature-based solutions (NbS).
The INTERLACE activities were conducted by a consortium consisting of local governments, research institutes and universities, city networks and communication and citizen engagement experts from Latin America and Europe. The project’s work explored a variety of topics around NbS, including:
- Evaluation, assessment and monitoring
- Policy instruments and governance strategies to support NbS implementation
- Fostering nature stewardship and engaging citizens with urban nature
- Innovative approaches to research and co-creation, such as adapting agile development principles
- Including ethics and justice considerations in planning, and fostering inclusion and diversity in participatory processes
- Developing innovative tools to make it easier for urban planners and designers to work with NbS
- Incentivising private sector provision
Building on the research conducted in the project’s six partner cities, INTERLACE has created a variety of resources and tools that can help governments, researchers, civic associations, planners and other actors working with nature-based solutions to address common challenges connected to developing urban nature projects.
The resources include a comprehensive free online course, guidance documents, case studies, assessment tools, webinar recordings, business cases, reports and interactive urban design tools. The resources are accessible in the City NBS Tool under six headings, representing common challenges faced by local governments and other actors working with NbS in (peri)urban contexts. The questions are formulated as a response to the prompt “I want to find out how to…” and include the following options:
I want to find out how to …
- Prioritise NbS to address specific urban environmental challenges; how to measure the performance of NbS
- Effectively design and implement (participatory) municipal policy and governance strategies for urban NbS
- Boost citizen engagement around urban NbS and promote nature stewardship
- Foster inclusion and diversity in governance and planning of (peri)urban NbS
- Incorporate NbS in urban design and urban planning using innovative tools
- Foster private sector provision of urban NbS
Each of the dedicated pages provides an in-depth introduction to the problem and considers common barriers to addressing a given challenge before sketching out potential solutions and directing readers towards concrete resources - and how the specific product can be used in the context of the presented need / challenge. The resources presented in the City NBS Tool include those produced as part of INTERLACE, as well as relevant tools and resources created through other projects.