Examples of Green Infrastructure - Berlin

What could be more in touch with urban nature than sharing your meal outside with a bird?

The conference site itself, Atelier gardens, is located just South of the former Tempelhofer airfield and houses a film studio. The name suggests the location is very green, and as we arrived new plants and an irrigation system were being installed. There were trees (very welcome as cover for both sun and rain as we walked between the buildings) and diverse bushes, as well as herbs for cooking at the on site restaurant.

Given that we had four action packed days at the conference site, I didn't get to see much of Berlin, but some parts are definitely very green. Even within the dense inner city, once you got off the main roads and into the smaller hidden alleys, entire building facades could be green, and outside terraces added plants where possible. I also visited Viktoriapark, which has a higher hill overlooking the city, though the trees covered much of the surroundings, and a waterfall running downhill.

To me the question when visiting cities these days is, how can we measure how much of the city fulfills the ambitions of the 3-30-300 policy, and how can we increase this in the areas that need it the most, as they are often already quite densely built? You can see different available methods for measuring and those in development in the link. Would these methods work where you live, is the required data available? What do you think would be the result of the 3-30-300 scan for your city?

World Environment Day

It's World Environment Day and this year's theme is on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience. In the Netherlands you could visit e.g. the ReNature festival. 

It is a good time to consider the impact of land use on the soil and life within in, and how nature based solutions might help recover soil quality and increase drought resilience. Not just for humans either.

World Biodiversity Day

It's world biodiversity day and the UT has many relating events the coming weeks. Check them out here: BioBlitz 2024: what species can you find on campus? Explore the campus & help spot plants and animals

Gotta catch them all! Help find more species we didn't know exist at our green UT campus during the events listed. You can find more news on international events here, as it is a UN initiated day, and translation to Dutch here.

 

 

 

Examples of Green Infrastructure - Vienna

Here are some examples of green infrastructure from Vienna, Austria. While I got the chance to see only a small part of the city, it has left me with a mixed impression. On the one hand, there are several large parks, and the Danube river and a canal cross the city, allowing for blue-green infrastructure as well. 

 

 

 

On the other hand, the inner city is densely built and doesn't allow for large green infrastructure. In some cases, it is even mobile. I realize that during my short visit I have only gotten an impression of this large city, but especially the newly developed area north of the river really drove home the point that green infrastructure should be a part of urban planning with the same priority as other services. There is nearly no space for nature, while there are thousands of apartments and therefore people with the need to visit and experience nature, preferably within 300 m of their homes. 

What are wadis? Example of Green Infrastructure

Wadis are a Dutch term used for temporary water retention areas as a form of green infrastructure. You can see a famous example from Enschede in the video below. This is part of the main ring road surrounding Enschede's center. You can see the retention area is quite deep, but the number of plant species is quite monotonous. During heavy rainfall it can fill up, but it is also connected underground to prevent overflowing.

Ideally, wadis are made by disconnecting the streets and roofs of buildings from the sewage system in order to collect the water in natural areas. This helps prevent the sewer from overflowing, prevents clean water from entering the sewer, and helps restore the ground water level. You can see this disconnected system where water flows from roofs, down the center of the street, and into a nearby pond in the video below.

 

Presentation at EGU24

Today I had my presentation on the Green Panel research results at the EGU24 in Vienna. You can view all the slides and supplementary information on this page. 

I received good questions about the followup, how can we apply this in multiple cities, so I got to explain the LILa plans in a bit more detail (only 2 minutes for questions). I also was invited to help host the session next year. I heard from the organizers that last year there was only one panel for green infrastructure, but this year there were many more on the topic of nature-based solutions. I'm glad it is gaining in popularity, but this also calls for a better distinction in focus for next year's assembly. My own focus will be more general than towards green roofs only, and it would be good to have a whole session on e.g. the same type of method or the concept of urban and nature integration.

First session at EGU24 - LGBT pride!

Today I had my first session at the EGU24, called 'The LGBT Pride group at EGU: Current progress, and challenges for LGBT people in the Earth system sciences, and ideas for how to overcome them'. I was the first of three invited speakers to talk about my experiences at the UT and what policies were in place. Some policies work well, some don't work at all, but it is a lot better than it was 5 years ago. For anyone who wants to know more about the current policies, visit https://www.utwente.nl/en/thinkwithprideut/ Did you know you can get up to two weeks of paid leave for transitioning? Unheard of when I grew up! 

The room was packed and there were not enough chairs for everyone, so if I do end up helping to host next year's session, it will have to be in a bigger room. If this topic is relevant to 10% of the population/attendants, that means 1800 attendants, and even if that is spread out over each conference day that still means 180 people, not 60. So I can argue for it quantitatively. The discussion was very open and described various cases where work policies obstruct or support LGBT scientists, or where they are still sadly absent. My hope, as I expressed during the session, is that sharing our stories helps people with their own journey, either as inspiration or either good or bad examples. Knowing we are all together helps a lot too.