Changing image of the urban environment

Uforest Case Study: Barcelona Nature Plan

One of the activities foreseen by the Uforest project is researching innovative Urban Forestry initiatives across Europe. For this reason, the Uforest team has selected and analysed some of the most interesting urban forestry projects in the continent, with the aim to illustrate real practices and eventually inspire others to start greening their cities. Among them, we selected the Barcelona Nature Plan.

The Pla Natura Barcelona (Barcelona Nature Plan) is a public initiative led by the Barcelona City Council with the aim to improve and increase...

Vigie-Nature École is a biodiversity monitoring program focused on multiple groups of organisms. The primary goals of this data collection is to provide data to researchers in urban ecology and provide education to children in all the subjects related to biodiversity that we can cover. Our last development focuses on actions that pupils or children can take in order to improve both biodiversity and well-being within the schools.

The NBS addresses multiple dimensions:

Experimenting with technical and administrative issues relevant to green roofing technical implementation.
Promoting the re-use of the abandoned building, representing a first step in proposing innovative uses of green infrastructure by implementing the green roof in a small part of the roof
Long-term goal is to extend it further to other parts of the roof.

The experimental features of this NBS are intended as replicable examples in enhancing urban environments and improving living conditions of inhabitants.
Working with schools to spread the knowledge about NBS to users of the buildings and raising awareness about the importance of plants in everyday life.
Promoting the collaboration with school teachers and staff of the homeless shelter to schedule activities that supported learning “science” disciplines, as well as Italian language skills, civic education and social studies.
Consulting a nursery to achieve

This NBS aims at improving the usability of the area:

to recover an abandoned and underutilized former industrial lot and to return it for public use;
to favor the transition of pollinating insects, following the directions of the ecological corridors identified by proGIreg;
to activate local inhabitants in taking care of the new green installations, by stimulating them through citizens-science activities;
to favor a collaborative setting of different stakeholders, in order to guarantee the sustainability of the intervention in the future

Naturfelder Dortmund e.V. was founded in order to convert urban spaces into pollinator friendly habitats. The structure of the association allows long-term existence beyond proGIreg. Main goals of the NBS implementations include:

Activating interested citizens from the Huckarde and Deusen district for pollinating insects and biodiversity topics
Sowing flower meadows or planting insect friendly plants that increase biodiversity on public or private land in cooperation with owners
Participating in events to inform about pollinator friendly measures

AteNas is built around 3 demonstration sites, covering urban and periurban zones of Łódź, Lyon and Vantaa/Helsinki and sharing the challenge of enabling water to citizens and nature, both in terms of quality and quantity.

Utilize of cities water resources to secure regulating ecosystem services, enable Nature-Based Solutions, and enhance adaptive capacity to global changes.

The city of Genoa experiences acute densification and lack of public green spaces, making urban heat stress a pronounced challenge. Air pollution and biodiversity loss are among the other challenges Genova targeted to address through NBS implementation.