Europe joins forces to turn cities green

The £2.5 million (€3 million) project, which has just got underway, has the backing of eight European Union member states. It will assist 10 cities and regions across the continent tackle climate changes threats, such as heat waves, flooding and subsidence.

The three-year collaboration is being led by the UK’s Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), which campaigns for the reform of the UK’s planning system and promotes sustainable development.

The University of Manchester is providing academic leadership on the initiative. Part of its work will be to provide action plans for the participating cities and regions to help them adapt to climate change through sustainable urban development and the use of urban green spaces, waterways and lakes – known as blue space.

Participating cities and regions come from as far and wide as the City of Malmo in Sweden, the Kalamaria region in Greece and Styria in Austria.

Research at Manchester University's Centre for Urban Regional Ecology has already found that an increase of 10 per cent in urban green cover would be enough to keep temperature close to current levels, even accounting for the increases predicted by climate modelers.

According to Dr Jeremy Carter of the University of Manchester, an expert in the field of climate change adaptation and a leading figure on the project, many policy-makers have up until now been focused on strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but finding ways to adapt to climate change is equally important.

"The need for cities to adapt to climate change is enormous," he said.  "If we protect and enhance green and blue space and encourage sustainable urban development then a viable future for our cities can be achieved. The differences between those cities that choose to adapt and those which do not will be stark.”
 
The European collaboration is known as Green and Blue Space Adaptation Strategies for Climate Change in Urban Areas and EcoTowns or GraBS for short. The European Regional Development Fund is funding it.
 
“In a highly competitive bidding process we are delighted that the GRaBS project has won funding from the European Union European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) INTERREG IVC Programme,” said TCPA chief executive Gideon Amos. “[The project] represents a broad spectrum of authorities and climate change challenges, all with varying degrees of strategic policy and experience.”
 
According to Carter, who is also working on a related project to develop Greater Manchester’s first integrated climate change adaptation strategy called EcoCities, green and blue spaces have a big part to play in moderating flooding and temperature in urban areas.

“Parks, gardens and green roofs have an important function in reducing run-off of rainwater into surrounding rivers, which can reduce flood-risk. At the same time, green and blue spaces act to cool the temperature that gets trapped in cities,” he said.
 
An existing example in Greater Manchester of a ‘green and blue space’ is Mersey Valley, where golf courses and recreation grounds around the Sale Water Park are designed to absorb flood water if levels in the River Mersey become too high.

"Cities like Stockholm, Malmo and Amsterdam are much better adapted to climate change than some other urban areas in Europe,” said Carter. “There are important lessons to be learnt and great strides can be made.”
 
Other project partners on GraBS include the City District of Geuzenveld-Slotermeer (Amsterdam), the Province of Genoa (Italy), the Regional Environment Centre for Eastern Europe (Slovakia), the South East England Development Agency and the Klaipeda University Coastal Research and Planning Institute (Lithuania).