Budapest - NbS for climate resilience and pollution control

Pocket parks and urban gardening contribute to richer urban biodiversity, better air quality. They also improve the climate, water, and soil cycles. These gardens and small parks have clear social impacts by bringing together communities, enhancing public awareness of nature, and providing health and recreational benefits. They also facilitate cooperation between residents, municipalities and NGOs. In terms of environmental benefits, renewing city parks can improve urban biodiversity; enhance water retention measures; improve climate conditions and air quality; and mitigate extreme events such as floods or heavy precipitation. Preserving and managing forests on the city's outskirts has an important effect on climate conditions by reducing temperatures in the urban heat-island, maintaining biodiversity, and improving air quality. It also provides social benefits in the improved quality of recreation areas.

Pocket Parks and urban gardens

Pocket parks and urban gardens increase urban biodiversity, and promote awareness of food production and nature. They also provide space for communities and social interaction, and improve public health. In Budapest, they are particularly important in urban regeneration areas and densely populated areas. In such areas they help to reduce social tensions and provide opportunities for recreational activities, in addition to improving local environmental conditions.

Renewing city parks

Renewing city parks can contribute to improved quality of life thanks to a reduction in the heat island effect, increased biodiversity, greater habitat connectivity, improved risk management, and better air quality. More accessible green spaces and leisure activities may also enable citizens to have a more active lifestyle and engage in more outdoor activities. This can reduce potential risks to physical and mental health. More time spent outside can result in improved social interactions between different social and age groups.

Preserving outskirts forests and wedged green areas

Preserving forests on the city's outskirts and the city's existing green areas can improve climate conditions, mitigate extreme events such as heavy rainfall, improve air quality, and promote biodiversity and habitat connectivity. The availability of green spaces and the leisure activities they encourage may also help citizens to lead a more active lifestyle, reducing risks to physical and mental health.

NbS play a crucial role in key policy documents such as the Budapest 2030 Long Term Urban Development Concept, the Integrated Urban Development Strategy 2020, the Budapest Green Infrastructure Strategy, and the Budapest Environmental Program 2017-2021.

The FP7 project FASUDIR helped to integrate the 'smart city' concept into Budapest's urban development strategies (Budapest 2030 Long Term Urban Development Concept, and the Integrated Urban Development Strategy 2020). It is hoped that FASUDIR can also contribute to the development of a large-scale modelling system for NbS. FASUDIR has also informed the city's Sustainable Energy Action Plan.

Another FP7 project, ARTS, contacted decision-makers at district level in Budapest, and introduced them to the concepts behind sustainable transitions in city planning. It also introduced participatory approaches and community planning mechanisms, which can be used during decision-making and the preparation of urban development strategies. Both the FASUDIR and ARTS projects promoted systematic innovation using policy tools and communication materials that can be used in similar projects in the future.

At the city level, citizens and municipalities communicate through consultations. Frequent fora are held in the planning and implementation stages of projects, where local residents and affected stakeholders can express their opinions. There is also close cooperation with different civil and expert organisations regarding city-level projects.

FP7 projects have been helpful in exploring different participative approaches for city planning. In the FASUDIR project, a public-private partnership of 11 different partners from science and SMEs, developed a common strategic document in conjunction with city authorities. The partnership discussed concepts such as the 'smart city' and energy management at district or city level. In the ARTS project, a diverse group of stakeholders, including NGOs, entrepreneurs, researchers, and local authorities identified opportunities for co-decision and coupling mechanisms. It is hoped that this will help to strengthen alliance-building and cooperation in the development of future projects.

In Budapest, job creation has been one of the goals when developing NbS. This has especially been the case when creating green areas. Because prices are higher for properties adjacent to the water or to green areas, developers aim to include these features in their projects.

FP7 projects have promoted new economic opportunities in the city. For instance, FASUDIR developed a software tool that assists investment decisions regarding energy and insulation in the home. Using the tool can enable smart and targeted insulation investments where they are most needed. If the methodology behind the tool is developed further, it will be able to assist in decisions regarding green roofs and facades. ARTS helped various stakeholders to develop new alliances and future projects together. This can both create new economic opportunities and address underlying sustainability problems.

In Budapest, the key success factor in developing NbS has been effective cooperation among the different municipalities and stakeholders. The ability of municipalities to cooperate and secure funding has also been critical. As Hungary depends a lot on EU funds, it is important that NbS be explicitly mentioned in relevant calls for tender to enable further development of NbS projects.

The FP7 project FASUDIR identified both success factors and limiting factors. The success factor was the will of different stakeholders to work and think together. This knowledge transfer through EU research projects is vital for areas that do not normally cooperate, but which see cooperation and joint thinking as an essential tool for development. Limiting factors included difficulties in working with city authorities due to a lack of capacity and knowledge (e.g. language, time pressure, structure of the authorities, and a lack of data). They also included a lack of funding mechanisms (for instance, funding mechanisms are not specified for different regions, and no source exists for thorough baseline analysis). Another major difficulty identified by the project was that although a software tool was successfully created (see above), there was no proper follow-up in refining the tool. There were additional issues with copyright and owners’ rights (the rights to the software tool were owned by the consortium, and therefore any further development has to be done with their consent and further legal negotiations). This makes further development of the tool rather problematic.

For the FP7 project ARTS, the main success factor was people's commitment to work on transitions toward sustainable cities. The main limiting factor for the ARTS project was a lack of communication and transparent rules of engagement between municipal authorities and civil society organisations. Compared with other cities involved in the project, the Budapest case study of ARTS also had significant time constraints, as the Central European University only joined the consortium in the last year of the project and had to work with a fraction of the resources available to other partners.

An additional challenge to the general adoption of NbS in the city was Budapest's inter-communal structure, which is made up of a single Budapest municipality, 23 district governments, and 20 other surrounding local governments. Other obstacles to the development of NbS include a lack of capacity in the city administration, and the narrow focus of funding mechanisms. These funding mechanisms do not allow for interconnected and holistic approaches. For instance, there is a need to address the social needs of less advantaged neighbourhoods together with measures on climate, energy, noise and green areas. However, funding mechanisms usually focus on only one policy sector.

Budapest wishes to strengthen its position as a 'green' city that places importance on biodiversity, connectivity, health, and societal well-being. It is also aware that NbS have important economic impacts, as the city will attract more tourists if it has more green areas. To achieve these goals, the city is formulating the city's Green Infrastructure Strategy. This strategy also feeds into the 2030 Urban Development Plan, where sustainability, environment and improved quality of life are among the main priorities.

Budapest takes part in a number of EU projects such as CEPPI. CEPPI promotes sustainable energy solutions through a public procurement of innovation approach (PPI), whereby public authorities act as a launch customer for innovative goods or services. Due to the large structure of Budapest's administration, city districts apply separately for EU funds relating to NbS. For example, the Hegyvidék district applied for the Interreg project European Cooperation for urban green spaces, while the Zugló district applied for ERDF funding for innovative urban strategies and action plans. In 2014, over 95% of all public investments in Hungary were co-financed by the EU, so adequate financing mechanisms that specifically mention NbS are one of the main drivers (alongside domestic political will) for project development.

Two other initiatives are currently under way that will likely be relevant drivers of NbS adoption in the future: Hungary's contribution to the Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES), and a national Green Infrastructure exercise, which will be finalised by 2020 (supported by the Environmental Operational Programme).

There is no overall monitoring on how the city is delivering on its strategic objectives.

In addition to benefitting from CEPPI, the FP7 project FASUDIR helped to transfer knowledge in Budapest on the 'smart city' concept and the systematic approach at district and city level. These insights can also be used when planning and implementing NbS. Furthermore, the European Environment Agency research that was used for the Budapest Environmental Assessment served as a base for the Budapest Environmental Program.