UGB - Urban Green Belts – Smart integrated models for sustainable management of urban green spaces for creating more healthy and liveable urban environments

To have a park or a garden at your doorstep in a large city is an advantage property buyers are looking for. They not only provide leisure or sports facilities but make the air cleaner, reduce urban noise and even improve urban climate. Yet, if they are not in a good shape they can easily turn into constant “battlefield” between the inhabitants and the authorities. Green belts, often spreading over a number of smaller settlements around big cities, are the “lungs” of the densely populated cities and can provide various environmental, social and economic benefits. To achieve these, however, traditional authority approaches are no longer sufficient and efficient.

So how could the green spaces be managed smartly? This is the central question of the Urban Green Belts. It will be tackled through the cooperation between the inhabitants and the authorities. Although there is today a pressing demand for better functioning operational models in Central Europe, the project team does not have the capacity to develop a complex novel system on their own.

Instead, through improving the capacities of all involved actors, the UGB project will devise a solution to make the management of urban green spaces more efficient. It will furthermore make the management a thoroughly integrated part of environment management systems. This will also contribute to enhanced biodiversity, improved air quality, less urban noise, more bearable urban heat waves and a generally improved quality of urban life.

Ten Urban Green Belt partners from 7 countries will develop innovative methods and tools (based on applying Green Infrastructure, community involvement and multi-level governance concepts) as the foundational support of the integrated models for managing urban green spaces smartly. The efficiency of these solutions will be tested jointly through pilot actions and compiled into a Manual to serve as guidance on reforming green spaces management for any public authority in Europe for the benefit of inhabitants.

For more information go to: UGB - Urban Green Belts

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