THE PROBLEM
Today, it is generally accepted that Nature-Based Solutions will play an important role in cities regeneration, since they adress urban challenges in a multifunctional way.
Green roofs and green walls are some of the most promising alternativas, as urban space is scarce and they can green the grey infrastructure.
Creating awareness and acceptance of these solutions by users/ citizens in general is decisive for a wide spreading of green roofs/walls in buildings/cities, namely in Mediterranean climates that face strong climate change challenges.
The purpose of Gallery is to evaluate the contribution of green roofs and green walls to urban biodiversity with the support of citizen science, to make sure enough data exists to value these constructive solutions properly when decision-makers are defining investments/urban policies, and to create awareness and thus acceptance of them by citizens.
As such, Gallery will answer these questions:
- What is the contribution of green roofs and green walls to the biodiversity of cities?
- How can it be correlated with the biodiversity of other urban green spaces?
- How should it be valued in urban planning?
ABOUT
GALLERY is a research project promoted by Instituto Superior Técnico and Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa.
The project is funded by FCT - Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, project 2023.18276.ICDT (DOI: https://doi.org/10.54499/2023.18276.ICDT).
OBJECTIVES
- Enhance the knowledge and awareness on green roofs/walls contribution to urban biodiversity
- Give information of how this contribution should be taken into account in urban planning
STRATEGY
The project will:
- Define a city case study and catalogue existing green roofs/ walls that are already installed in the city;
- Collect a comprehensive and systematic data base of green roofs/walls contributions to the biodiversity of the city, by feeding BioDiversity4All platform and encouraging citizen participation;
- Define a school case study and engage the school community in the installation, maintenance and evaluation of the performance of green roofs/walls prototypes;
- Encourage and measure longitudinal (e.g. over time) and intergenerational (e.g. students and families) learning on greens roofs/walls ecosystem services and technology
- Model the contribution of green roofs/walls to urban biodiversity;
- Develop urban policies for the city case study using project data and (all-inclusive) cost-benefits analysis;
- Understand how this demonstration project can be up-scaled in other cities and spread out the results.
