Restoring urban streams to promote biodiversity, climate adaptation and to improve quality of life in cities

In the current period of global warming, declining biodiversity and continued pressures of urbanisation, it is the moment to reconsider the role and quality of urban streams. Unfortunately, they have become increasingly invisible: over-built, channelised and degraded by anthropogenic use. Creating green and blue corridors not only significantly contributes to building climate-resilient cities by improving microclimatic conditions in overheated cities or providing fresh air corridors, but it also connects stream reaches, provides floral and faunal habitats, as well as recreational spaces that improve human wellbeing. However, stream restorations in urban areas using nature-based approaches (NBA) face many barriers and challenges: lack of space in intensively built-up areas, property rights of surrounding land, funding, different stakeholder interests, acceptance, and flood protection. To face these challenges, it is necessary to perform an integrated analysis of river hydraulics, ecology, stakeholder interests, institutional frameworks, social perspectives and urban space requirements.

Pilot restoration measures are being implemented in four study urban stream areas located in Dresden (DE), Jablonec nad Nisou (CZ), Poznan (PL) and Senica (SK). Current urban challenges and opportunities of these four case studies are being identified and analysed together with stakeholder groups with different perspectives. The trade-offs between the social and ecological requirements in the context of urban planning and institutional settings are being extracted.

The Slovak pilot reach - Teplica River in Senica is struggling with specific problems of insufficient flood capacity, poor morphological and ecological quality, low summer flows, upstream dam operation and poorly utilized public space. All of these are being addressed in case study, the outcomes of which will serve as inputs for further analysis. Experiences from multiperspective, transdisciplinary, participatory and integrated analyses in four pilot reaches will help to better design future urban restoration projects and will enable practitioners and decision makers in urban planning to utilise social-ecological integrated NBA for urban multifunctional areas that promote biodiversity and provide ecosystem services.

 

Acknowledgements:

This research has been supported by the Interreg CE programme under Contract No. CE0200754 ReBioClim and Scientific Grant Agency under Contract No. VEGA 1/0067/23. The author thanks the agencies for their research support.