Regreen: nature-based solutions in urban environments

REGREEN aimed to promote urban liveability, through fostering nature-based solutions in Europe and China using evidence-based tools and improved urban governance accelerating the transition towards equitable, green and healthy cities.


 

The project was funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, with partners in China funded in parallel by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology and aimed to explore the drivers and pressures that challenge future urban sustainability, to improve the evidence and tools for supporting co-creation of nature-based solutions (NBS) in urban settings, implementation of decision support systems for planning and governance, and development of business models for realising spatially relevant NBS, that provide multiple ecosystem services and wellbeing.

The key impacts of the project were  in the Urban Living Labs (ULLs) where co-creation of knowledge involved local citizens, schools, businesses, organisations and public administrations enabling new forms of urban innovation. The ULLs were the testbed, where generic tools, together with scientific results, new ideas and methods, are applied in the real context with the aim of these being translated into other contexts.

The role of the team at ECEHH was to focus on the wellbeing benefits of nature-based solutions. Professor Ben Wheeler explains how working closely with partners is instrumental in achieving real world impact.

“Our city partners in REGREEN and more generally local authorities and national governments are increasingly explicit about the kind of evidence that they need. One of the things that we’re doing is producing the right evidence and communicating it in the right way for different audiences. So the way that we work with our municipality partners in Croatia, might be a bit different from the way we work with partners in Denmark where they have different needs and different pressing policy concerns. So we take this approach of trying to develop the right evidence for the right context and we can only do that by working in collaboration with these partners throughout. We were talking to our city partners since before the project even started and by doing that we made sure that we were developing and delivering the evidence that can actually help to make a difference on the ground. ”

Dr Jo Garrett’s work focused on the reduced risk of mortality by heat from public green spaces in Paris. She explains,

“Climate change is one of these challenges that nature-based solutions can potentially help us with. In particular, high temperatures and heat pose a risk to health. This is especially problematic in urban areas because they are typically warmer than surrounding rural areas and this is called the urban heat island effect. This means that future impacts of climate change on human health will be exacerbated in urban areas. It’s important that we try and reduce this risk. Parks and green spaces are cooler than their surrounding areas and the cooling effect that they have extends beyond their boundaries to nearby residential areas, representing a potential nature-based solution to urban heat. So, we explored the cooling effects of natural spaces in Paris and tested whether the cooling effect was related to how much vegetation there was and how big they were. Then we calculated the health effects of these public green spaces in Paris in terms of the reduced risk of mortality and the associated economic value.”

Dr James Fulham looked at street trees from a qualitative perspective. This work involved conducting a series of workshops with focus groups involving members of the public and planning professionals in each of the urban living labs.

The findings showed that street trees provide a touchpoint with nature, help people to track seasonality and even without purposeful contact they still have a positive impact on people’s mood and ability to manage stress.

Amongst feedback on potential negative impacts, groups highlighted practical issues, such as the blocking of light, leaf litter and the sense of security in parks.  Dr James Fullam explains the suggestions emerging from this work,

“My recommendations would be that local councils and municipalities should try as hard as possible to retain older and mature trees and the public are very aware that the planting of new trees is not the same thing as you’re looking at a generational gap between the same benefits, both health benefits and mental benefits so it’s important not to underestimate the value that citizens place on trees. I would say it would be very important for municipalities to engage with citizens both prior to planting programmes but also prior to any removal activities and finally I think it’s very important that councils are very aware of the practical issues and sense of security issues that can be associated with street trees as these can become extremely costly in terms of resources and can create these tensions between the municipality and the citizens if they’re not anticipated and they’re not managed properly.”

In addition to scientific dissemination, REGREEN had a strong outreach component targeting urban planners, business, and the broader public. The project reiterated the importance of connecting NBS with the business and start-up community.

REGREEN was a consortium consisting of 7 universities, 4 research institutes (including museum), 3 city authorities (including agency), 4 consultancies (SMEs) and 2 city networks (including cooperative), from China and Europe. The project was  funded through H2020 programme, started in September 2019 and ran until the end of August 2023.