Background:
Urban green infrastructure plays a crucial role for physical and mental health of urban population, environmental quality, ecological functioning, and urban sustainability. The planning, governance, implementation, and maintenance of urban green involve complex and systemic processes that require interdisciplinary collaboration across research and practice. Given the global nature of climate and urban health challenges, the increasing climate-related physical, mental, social, and economic pressures on society, and limited human and structural capacities of the stakeholders involved, close international cooperation is essential for developing transferable and effective solutions. International cooperation pools resources, promotes the efficient exchange of knowledge, and avoids duplication of effort, thereby enabling the faster development of sustainable and scalable solutions.
Aim:
This international and interdisciplinary science-practice network focuses on the intersection of urban greenery, digitalization, and governance, from a health and sustainability perspective. Through transatlantic collaboration between researchers and landscape architecture practitioners, the network aims to:
- improve guidance for urban green planning and management,
- identify synergies and recurring conflicts between health, equity, and sustainability,
- document effective solutions, and
- develop policy recommendations to improve urban green governance and guidance practices.
A focus is on examining how digitalization interacts with urban green governance structures and processes. One example is governance implications and challenges of digital twins.
Networking format and working method:
The networking activities will comprise both online and in-person formats. The network brings together experts from a variety of disciplines and sectors to evaluate existing planning and governance procedures in the field of urban green. This will include an examination of the full life cycle of urban green spaces, from planning and design through implementation, maintenance, evaluation, redesign, or abandonment. For this, guidance materials including non-digital tools (e.g., standards, indicators, toolkits, checklists, case studies) and digital tools (e.g., GIS or AI-based) will be investigated to analyze their strengths and limitations. Methods applied will include collaborative analysis and structured knowledge exchange, leading to joint publications and shared learning.
Involved institutions:
- Medical School OWL, Bielefeld University (Coordination)
- Center for Development Research, Bonn University
- Department of Health Sciences, University of Applied Sciences for Health, Bochum
- Detmold School of Design, OWL University of Applied Sciences, Detmold
- Dirtworks Landscape Architecture, New York, USA
- Faculty of Resource Management, University of Applied Science and Art, Göttingen
- Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig
- Institute for Urban Public Health, University Medical Center Essen
- Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan
- Municipality of Paderborn
- Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability, New Jersey, USA
- School of Global Public Health, New York University, New York, USA
- University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg
Duration and funding:
International contacts were strengthened in 2023/2024 with visits by Rainer Fehr to the United States and have continued to expand in recent years.
A suitable source of financing is currently being explored.