Increase quality and quantity of green and blue infrastructures

Managing urban Biodiversity and Green Infrastructure to increase city resilience in Ghent (UrbanGaia project)

The aim is to develop a realistic framework of indicators to evaluate, manage and develop performant Urban Green-Blue Infrastructure (U-GBI) in cities and intensively managed landscapes. UrbanGaia explicitly focusses on analysis of ecological and socio-economic features of the many existing GBIs. The evaluation of one the green axis of the ecological network in Ghent will serve as a case study for the framework of indicators. Furthermore, policy, governance and management practices of U-GBI are analyzed to identify innovative approaches to GBI implementation and usage.

Measuring and Improving Urban Tree Vitality and ES Provisioning in Leuven through Inoculation with Ectomycorrhizal Fungi (URBANMYCOSERVE)

The aim is (i) to provide an assessment of the EcM community and functional group composition of urban trees, and of its environmental drivers, using next generation sequencing techniques; (ii) to relate specific EcM, or functional groups of EcM, to tree health, and tree ecosystem service delivery and resilience, using advanced noninvasive spectral and physiological sensing technology, diameter growth measurements, and urban biophysical modeling; and (iii) to develop and test (in situ & ex situ) a dedicated EcM-inoculum to improve urban tree health, and ecosystem service delivery and...

Measuring and Improving Urban Tree Vitality and ES Provisioning through Inoculation with Ectomycorrhizal Fungi in Porto (URBANMYCOSERVE)

Medmerry, West Sussex coastal flooding

The managed realignment project at Medmerry is the biggest on the open-coast in Europe (Image: Environment Agency)

Sustainable flood risk management: It will provide a higher standard of protection to the area
Creation of compensatory intertidal habitat: Delivering 183ha of intertidal habitat, including mudflat, saltmarsh and transitional grassland.
Involvement of local communities: Creating new access routes and viewpoints

Ecuador: The Socio Bosque Program

Map of priority areas for Socio Bosque. Source: Ministry of Environment, Ecuador.

Conserve native forests and other native ecosystems to protect their ecological, economic, cultural and spiritual values.
Significantly reduce deforestation and associated GHG emissions.
Improve the well-being of farmers, indigenous communities and other groups living in the country’s rural areas

Riparian Forest Restoration and River Bank Protection, Evrotas River, Greece

The objective of the LIFE-EnviFriendly project was to demonstrate low cost, nature based solutions that if used by all farmers within a watershed it will improve the water quality of the waters significantly. The NbS used in this case was a riparian forest restoration coupled with a river bank erosion protection.

Park 500 Natural Treatment System

The Park 500 Natural Treatment System (NTS) was constructed as a voluntary effort to provide a low-energy, low-maintenance alternative to reducing nitrogen and phosphorus in the process’s wastewater, which is high in nitrate-nitrogen, organic nitrogen and total phosphorus.

The project was initiated to reduce the environmental footprint of the tobacco production facility and help Philip Morris USA meet its environmental sustainability goals. The NTS reduces mass loading to the James River and creates a performance buffer for the existing plant discharge to ensure long-term...

Izta - Popo - Replenishing Groundwater through Reforestation in Mexico

The Volkswagen Group (the Group) is one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers. The Group is comprised of twelve brands (Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania and MAN), operating 118 production plants in 20 countries across Europe and 11 countries in the Americas, Asia, and Africa.

The Group aims to create lasting value for the Company, its employees, and its shareholders, but also for the countries and regions in which they operate. This all-embracing view of sustainability is...