Green Infrastructure and Urban Biodiversity for Sustainable Urban Development and the Green Economy (GREEN SURGE) – Is there place for biocultural diversity in the cities? (original) (raw)

In a time of continuing urbanization, there is increasing focus on developing attractive and healthy urban environments. Green spaces, ranging from woodlands and parks to allotment gardens and green roofs, provide a range of ecosystem services that contribute to better cities. The GREEN SURGE project set out in 2013 to identify, develop and test ways of linking green spaces, biodiversity, people and the green economy in order to meet the major urban challenges related to land use conflicts, climate change adaptation, demographic changes, and human health and wellbeing. It provided a sound evidence base for urban green infrastructure planning and implementation, exploring the potential for innovation in better linking environmental, social and economic ecosystem services with local communities. Working from the local to the city-regional level, the project aimed to: 1) Develop urban green infrastructure as a planning concept for both integration and promotion of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and adapt it to local contexts. 2) Apply an innovative biocultural diversity perspective to develop successful gov-ernance arrangements facilitating socio-ecological integration and local engagement in planning of urban green spaces. 3) Explore how valuation and real market integration of biodiversity and ecosystem services could facilitate choices in favour of the development of multifunctional green spaces in urban areas. Approaches and tools under these three interlinked objectives were developed and implemented through an integrative, iterative and transdisciplinary process. GREEN SURGE embraced a three-tiered approach of comparative European cases, synthesis of good practices , and establishment of five Urban Learning Labs, strategically selected to represent different urban situations in Europe. Urban Learning Labs were established in the cities of Bari (Italy), Berlin (Germany), Edinburgh (UK), Ljubljana (Slovenia), and Malmö (Sweden). GREEN SURGE worked within cooperative Learning Alliances, a specific type of multistakeholder involvement designed to enhance a process of shared learning and understanding in situations with a high degree of complexity and unpredictability. GREEN SURGE thus combined a projectwide, science-driven approach based on a common framework methodology with a bottom-up knowledge or experience-based approach at the local level. Project Context and Objectives: 2.1 Project context: Worldwide, more than half of the population lives in cities, and this number is still rising. In Europe, more than 70% of the population is already living in urban areas. As Europe and the world continue to urbanize, challenges for sustainable development and human wellbeing will be more concentrated in cities. Urban green space networks (including diverse kinds of green and blue spaces) are increasingly recognised as having an essential role to play in maintaining the human-nature interaction and in tackling various urban challenges. Green spaces can make substantial contributions to policy objectives for sustainable urban development, such as improving public health, protecting biodiversity, enhancing social cohesion, supporting the economy, providing opportunities for recreation, and helping cities adapt to a