MADE Student Project

Space is increasingly scarce and expensive in the urban landscape. There is an urgent need to regreen the city to combat multiple urban challenges such as the urban heat island effect, boost biodiversity, capture CO2 and improve water retention. This Living Lab project develops a contribution to solving these current socio-ecological challenges.

The challenges stated are complex in the sense that they touch upon different fields of expertise like ecology, urban planning, governance, and economy. Our case owner is MeerBomenNu (MBN); a campaign that was collectively initiated by Urgenda, Caring Farmers and Stichting MEERGroen. Their method revolves around transplanting saplings to locations where additional green is needed or desired instead of wasting them. To contribute to this we developed a product that helps with locating target areas where saplings can or should be planted. Therefore, our product consists of four steps; a climate indicator list, data action models, a tree species list and guidelines for planting trees in the appointed area. This report includes the meandering process of the creation of the product, further discussions on the direction of attaining this product, its contribution to the ecological challenges and how it is embedded in current urban greening schemes.

Through applying these various lenses and steps we were able to formulate a replicable product that can be utilised by Urgenda, municipalities and other organisations to ensure socio-ecological sustainability into the future.

Authors: Henriette Hugenholtz, Alexander Brown, Daan Helmerhorst

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