Innovative methods for the management and improvement of urban green and ecosystem services (VerdeVale)

Description:

VerdeVale is an innovative project that aims at establishing a community of cross-border best practices between small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and local authorities for the management and enhancement of urban green areas. In particular, the project focuses on the in-depth analysis of ecosystem services. Urban green areas can no longer be considered as aesthetic and ecological elements, but represent a real service to citizens, playing the role of important allies for the mitigation of urban climate.

The project, which involves the cities of Bolzano and Lugano as partners and "test sites", is confronted with the real environmental challenges of our time in places characterized by strong anthropization and high vulnerability to the effects of climate change. For this reason, developing innovative methods is needed to make Alpine cities resilient and generate positive effects on citizens' life quality. 

The Interreg VerdeVale project focuses on:

• Identifying a sustainable methodology to collect and update Urban Green data for an adequate assessment of Ecosystem Services;
• Carrying out a census of Urban Green in the two partner cities by using the new methodology characterized both by innovative technologies and by the structuring of the collected data. The methodology involves the environmental and economic quantification of Ecosystem Services;
• Upgrading the GIS management platform GreenSpaces, already in use in the two partner cities, to implement the new data model and develop necessary functionalities for the quantification of ecosystem services;
• Giving maximum visibility of environmental results to the citizens.

Since the project operates on both sides of the border, its results are more easily replicable in other cities of the cross-border mountain territory. A new notion of the function carried out by the urban green becomes particularly relevant in the Alpine context, in which the project takes place, with the aim of making the Alpine region sustainable and attractive not only from an environmental but also economic point of view, by improving the competitiveness of companies operating in the area. Businesses in the green management sector can increase their competitiveness through the enhancement of ecosystem services that urban greenery offers to the city.

Project information

Lead

R3GIS

Partners

Demetra

The City of Bolzano (IT)

Benicchio

The City of Lugano (CH)

Source of funding

Operation co-funded by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund, the Italian Government and the Swiss Confederation and Cantons as part of the Interreg V-A Italy-Switzerland Cooperation Programme.