Dissemination of information and education

“The Went Water Vole Project, a two year project working with local people and landowners throughout the River Went catchment to secure the future survival for one of the most significant water vole populations in West Yorkshire. Work also involves carry out habitat restoration and creation schemes across the area to link up isolated water vole colonies and encourage the re-population of some of their old ranges.” (Ref. 1)

The green initiative 'Oost Indisch Groen' (East Indian Green) is a citizen initiative to make the neighbourhood more sustainable, fun and healthy by means of active citizenship. The key NBS initiative is the neighbourhood garden ('Buurttuin Oost Indisch Groen') in which vegetables are grown with a community kitchen that supports social cohesion and that also gives space for an educational workshop on gardening and sustainability-related topics (1, 6,7)

A long-awaited flood defence scheme which is designed to protect the city from a repeat of the devastating floods in 2007. "The ambitious project has taken 14 years of planning" and will protect the city's gateway (Westgate). The project manager from EA, said: "The work we're doing on the Ings Beck scheme will mean Wakefield is protected against the kind of flood that only has a one in 100 chance of happening in a year." The scheme involves solving the flooding problem and encourage wildlife habitat. (Ref. 1)

The Aa promenade, created in 1950 to provide the citizens of Muenster with a green experience trail in the inner city, was redeveloped in the 90s with several planting measures on riverbanks, walls and in adjacent areas. Next to a brochure, a nature trail which combines the existing recreational with an educational component was created with 18 site-specific signposting points. They cover multiple benefits and ecological functions of urban green spaces, city trees and green facades/walls (microclimate regulation, air quality, CO2 capture), anthropogenic threats, unknown biodiversity hotspots and natural monuments (Ref. 1, 3 and 6).

The Green Ventilation Corridors network in Stuttgart, Germany is an implemented nature-based solution coupled with regulatory policies and incentives. Within this initiative, Green ventilation corridors were created to enable fresh air to sweep down from hills surrounding the city (4).

Bute Park is a riverside green spot with an arboretum and gardens, containing a broad range of ecosystems supporting a wide variety of living species (ref 4). The historic Mill Leat had been dry since the 1970s."The word "leat" refers to "an open watercourse conducting water to a mill". The Mill Leat sits on the same site as a former millpond at the end of the original medieval millstream. It supplied water to corn mills located to the south of the Wst Gate and contained water well into the 1970s." (Ref 10) .Mill Leat Restoration or the re-flooding of the dry water body was a major deliverable under the Bute Park Restoration project (ref 2). In 2013 the overgrown channel was excavated, lined and refilled with water as part of the Bute Park Restoration Project (Ref 2). It enhanced the character of the park and provided a new habitat for wildlife (ref 1). Now re-flooded, Mill Leat is self-contained, self-regulating and self-circulating. It has reduced the risk of flooding and created a sustainable water feature (ref 2).

The first external green wall in Lublin was installed at the University of Natural Sciences in September 2015, and it was later followed by two smaller installations inside and outside in 2017 [5]. Apart from their decorative and aesthetical functions, the walls serve educational and research purposes, as the suitability of the chosen plants for the Polish climate conditions will be evaluated for similar urban projects in the country. Finally, the project promotes urban greenery and certain offsetting for grey infrastructure [1, 2, 3, 5].

Monglong Park was rehabilitated in 2012 with the explicit aim of strengthening social ties. The site is a wooded area of 4 hectares to the south of the Bellefontaine district. Unknown until its redevelopment, it constitutes a true ecological niche for the city and has great biological richness and landscape. The associations of gardeners and the gardeners of the Bellefontaine neighborhood, including the Maghreb and Mong communities, were involved throughout the construction of the park (Ref. 2).

The Park Killesberg serves as the green centre of the newly constructed district in Stuttgart and continues the long history of the area as a garden show site with a contemporary expression of landscape architecture and as a model for interconnected green spaces. The design is the result of a collaborative process with the local authorities, citizens and neighbours (1).

The Gar'den is a Provencal garden and a vegetable garden of permaculture, both a relaxing space and a participatory garden. Indeed, everyone will be invited to participate in the life of this Gar'den, common good to protect. Young and older will be able to discover the Provencal vegetable treasures and relax in a space devoted to the sharing of goods and knowledge. (Ref. 11)