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

As part of the Horizon 2020 CONEXUS project, the Buenos Aires Life-Lab spans two municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires (MRBA), the City of Buenos Aires and the City of General San Martín. The Life-Lab operates three pilot projects, each involving nature-based solutions (NbS) actions of different types and scales.

With an estimated population of 3,075,646 (INDEC, 2021), the city of Buenos Aires is the Argentinian capital and one of the densest cities in the world with over 15,000 inhabitants per km² (BACG, 2021), concentrating important financial, economic, and social services of the country. Bordering Buenos Aires to the north, the city of San Martín has an estimated population of 425,265 (INDEC, 2021) and is characterised by a historic and expansive industrial base mixed with residential areas.

Predominantly flat, the entire MRBA’s geography is characterised by multiple waterways running through urban areas and flowing into the La Plata estuary to the east of Buenos Aires. The resulting tension between intensifying land development and decreasing natural capacities to manage and treat stormwater presents a critical challenge to the entire metropolitan region. This is exacerbated by more extreme precipitations caused by climate change, combined with the sudestada phenomenon, which intensifies wind currents thereby impeding regular water flows, and reduced soil capacity for retention and permeability, which in turn increases vulnerability to flooding.

Water quality in the urban waterways of the region is also critically poor, presenting high levels of contamination, including heavy metals, from untreated industrial effluents and stormwater discharge. Most of these waterways, besides having become defunct habitats for most native fauna and flora, have also been culverted.

Other environmental challenges in the region stem from a range of urbanisation processes which disproportionately affect low-income residents and informal settlements; from vulnerability to flooding, extractive practices without adequate control and remediation, exposure to highly toxic agrochemicals used in intensive peri-urban farms and proximity to open-air landfills and dumps.

Another environmental problem that disproportionately affects low-income residents living in the MRBA is air pollution. Emissions are generated mainly by transport traffic and industries, and in some areas the concentration of harmful pollutants exceeds local air quality standards (Greenpeace, 2018).   

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 uptake of NbS, using real-life evidence to influence policymaking decisions towards a more resilient future. Key objectives include:

• Engaging key stakeholders across civil society, businesses, government and research organisations to support cross-sectoral cooperation, expanding pilots’ reach and amplifying NbS impacts;
• Fostering collaborative NbS planning and co-design processes;
• Leveraging interactions and knowledge exchange with other cities and their Life-Labs within the H2020 CONEXUS project;
• Ensuring long-term sustainability of and lasting political commitment to the co-created NbS;
• Increasing local urban biodiversity and by doing so boosting urban ecosystem services of intervened sites.

• Horizon 2020 programme
• Municipality of San Martín
• Government of the City of Buenos Aires

• Increase of local urban biodiversity, in particular, native plant species;
• Restoration of urban green and blue-infrastructure and related ecosystem services;
• Mitigation of environmental degradation issues caused by urbanisation, including air pollution, contamination of streams and water ecosystems, and flooding;
• Promoting environmental education of children and residents of socio-economically vulnerable neighbourhoods, building capacities for ecosystems management;
• More inclusive and participatory governance processes, across sectors and scales.

Pilot projects

Three CONEXUS pilots are implemented by the Buenos Aires Life-Lab in line with a wider city strategy:

Breathe / Respirar Pilot

Building on the previously established collaboration between the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Sheffield, the Breathe / Respirar Pilot is part of a wider programme (‘Breathe Deep / Respirar Profundo’) to bring nature closer to children, enhancing urban biodiversity while mitigating air pollution (see also: ‘Living Fences in Buenos Aires: Improving Quality of Air’ case study). The Pilot entails phytoremediation via the creation of green walls, fences, and biodiversity gardens in three public schools of the Green Schools Programme (‘Programa Escuelas Verdes’), each located in areas with high levels of NO₂ and particulate matter from traffic: Escuela Primaria N.3 D.E. 11 Angela Medone de Caviglia, Escuela Primaria Nº 6 Sargento Bernabé Márquez and Escuela N. 3 D.E. 7 Primera Junta.

Besides providing important ecosystem services, the green schoolyards generate spaces for outdoor learning, play, and environmental education/sensibilisation. The implementation of the Breathe / Respirar model consists of various stages, all of which aim to build dedicated green spaces according to the specific needs of each schoolyard community.

Lugano Lake Pilot

The Lugano Lake Pilot develops in the homonymous Ecological Reserve and involves the restoration of a wetland of shallow and fluctuating waters, through the introduction of native vegetation to enhance biodiversity. This pilot presents a strong social dimension and promotes communities’ awareness of ecosystem benefits/services provided by aquatic ecosystems. The pilot also symbolises the recomposition of a natural environment underrepresented in the city and, in this sense, an opportunity for people to reconnect with more naturalised spaces.

Medrano Stream Blue-Green Infrastructure Pilot

Located in San Martín, a separate municipality within the Buenos Aires metropolitan region, the Medrano Stream Blue-Green Infrastructure Pilot (or ‘Medrano Pilot’) unfolds a Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUD) in Villa Maipu as part of a proposal for Blue-Green Infrastructure for the Medrano Stream basin. It tests a nature-based solutions approach to storm water management, storm water quality control and flood control for deculverting as a cost-effective alternative to grey infrastructure approaches to flooding.

Buenos Aires Life-Lab pilots:

• Verónica Fabio, Universidad de Buenos Aires, veronica.fabio@fadu.uba.ar
• Teresa Verellen, Buenos Aires City Government, verellenteresa@gmail.com
• Demián Rotbart, San Martin Municipality, demian.rotbart@gmail.com

SDGs/NUA data:

• Federica Risi, EUKN, federica.risi@eukn.eu 

This case study is also available in Spanish

CONEXUS Deliverable 6.1 Report.  Data on SDG/NUA impacts/potentials linked with investment propositions uploaded to Oppla. 

References

• Buenos Aires City Government (BACG) (2021). [Online] Ciudad de Buenos Aires. https://buenosaires.gob.ar/laciudad/ciudad#:~:text=La%20densidad%20de%20la%20población,mujeres%20por%20cada%20100%20varones.
• CONEXUS Deliverable 3.1 Report with action plans for each Life-Lab (internal).
• CONEXUS Deliverable 2.2 Seven detailed EU and CELAC cases on NbS challenges and opportunities addressed: ‘Integration of NbS in local governance contexts and urbanisation trajectories in CONEXUS EU and CELAC cities. Evidence from Barcelona, Buenos, Aires, Bogotá, Lisbon, Santiago, São Paulo and Turin.’
• CONEXUS Deliverable 4.1 Assessment framework, indicators and participatory monitoring process.
• CONEXUS Deliverable 6.1 Report.  Data on SDG/NUA impacts/potentials linked with investment propositions uploaded to Oppla. 
• Buenos Aires Life-Lab CONEXUS Factsheet ‘Wetland Lugano, the restoration of an aquatic ecosystem’, August 2023.
• Fabio, V. (2021). ‘Living Fences in Buenos Aires: Improving Quality of Air’. CONEXUS case studies. https://oppla.eu/casestudy/23347.
• Greenpeace (2018). Monitoreo calidad del aire en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Campaña contaminación de aire.
• Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INDEC) (2021). Estadísticas, Población. https://www.indec.gob.ar.

• van der Jagt, A.P.N., Buijs, A., Dobbs, C., et al. (2023). An action framework for the participatory assessment of nature-based solutions in cities. Ambio 52, 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01772-6.

• Wild, T., Baptista, M., Wilker, J., et al. (2024). Valuation of urban nature-based solutions in Latin American and European cities.  Urban Forestry & Urban Greening,  Volume 91, 128162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2023.128162.