Project title: GreenScape CE - Climate-proof landscape through renaturing urban areas in Central Europe

Project duration: March 2023 - March 2026

Financing:The GreenScape CE project is co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Partners:

The project involves 12 partners and 21 supporting partners from Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Austria and Poland. In addition to ZRS BISTRA PTUJ, Slovenia is represented by the Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.

Cities in Central Europe are growing and green spaces are often turning into grey concrete cities. This urban sprawl is accelerating the negative effects of climate change, such as urban heat islands.

The overall objective of the project is to lay the foundations for the integration of green into grey infrastructure in urban areas, thus contributing to more climate-safe landscape and urban planning. Through an improved policy of cross-border peer learning and cooperation in the development of action plans, the GreenScape project aims to equip local authorities and communities with the necessary skills to implement and finance NBS (Nature Based Solution) projects. These are projects that seek nature-based solutions and mitigate the environmental and socio-economic impacts arising from climate change in urban areas.

The rich diversity of the natural capital of Central Europe's ecosystems and landscapes is linked to many environmental and climate change challenges that are not unique to one country and require a common approach to tackle them without losing the services that nature provides to European communities. The continuous growth of urban areas at the expense of green spaces, combined with frequent heat waves and meteorological extremes, is leading to unwanted consequences such as poorer air quality, greenhouse effects, urban flooding and habitat fragmentation. To tackle these effects and other challenges brought about by a changing climate, local authorities are working to bring nature back into grey infrastructure and are looking for solutions based on nature-friendly solutions.

By implementing innovative elements that go beyond existing practice, GreenScape CE focuses on practices that will contribute to the integration of green infrastructure into grey in urban areas of Central Europe.

The pilot cities where nature-based solutions (NBS) will be explored to mitigate environmental and economic impacts in urban cores are Ptuj, Milan, Warsaw, Sziget and Zagreb.

The specific objectives of the project are:

• Mapping current and potential green infrastructure (GI) sites in pilot cities using existing environmental and spatial data;
• Capacity building in green infrastructure and the development of a policy framework;
• Developing five action plans linked to the implementation of NBS (nature-based solutions) in pilot urban areas;
• Based on the measures for the integration of NBS/GI in the urban areas of the pilot cities, solutions will be developed: a model for citizen involvement and participation, technical solutions and a financing model;
• a set of suitable NBS projects will be developed on the basis of the action plans that will emerge in the pilot cities;
• developing a common transnational strategy for the implementation and financing of NBS projects;
• Establishing a transnational network of cities to promote mutual and transdisciplinary capacity building.