Nervi Park
Del Nervi Park is a project co-led by the Port System Authority of the Sardinian Sea and the Municipality of Cagliari. Completed in 2021, it transformed a long-abandoned and degraded area on the Cagliari waterfront into a vibrant green space. The two-hectare site surrounds a 1950s industrial building and underwent extensive redevelopment to enhance its structural integrity and convert it into a public park. With a budget exceeding 5 million euros, the project prioritized green investments by creating new pedestrian and cycling paths, along with green spaces featuring local plants, flower beds, grass, and lawns.
Nervi Park is set to become a key destination for leisure, sports, and cultural activities, while also providing the Cagliari community with greater access to green spaces. The environmental and urban renewal efforts aimed to beautify and modernize the area, with future development plans focusing on long-term management and the introduction of commercial activities to further enhance the space
The project faced significant barriers, including prolonged disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which halted work for about eight months. (Refs. 1, 2, 3 & 4).
Nervi Park is set to become a key destination for leisure, sports, and cultural activities, while also providing the Cagliari community with greater access to green spaces. The environmental and urban renewal efforts aimed to beautify and modernize the area, with future development plans focusing on long-term management and the introduction of commercial activities to further enhance the space
The project faced significant barriers, including prolonged disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which halted work for about eight months. (Refs. 1, 2, 3 & 4).
Trénnelle-Citron Experimental Garden
Trénelle-Citron, located north of downtown Fort-de-France and separated by the city bypass, La Rocade, was originally established in the 1940s by Black Martinicans migrating from rural areas. Today, the neighborhood faces significant economic and social challenges. In 2016, young residents from the neighborhood alongside a local NGO launched a grassroots initiative to improve their community. They transformed a former municipal quarry, which had deteriorated into an informal dump, into a thriving shared urban garden, benefiting the local population. This project, based on traditional ecological gardening techniques and the cultivation of native crops, aimed to revitalize Trénelle-Citron—a densely populated area grappling with social exclusion, a shortage of green spaces, and limited economic opportunities for its youth (Ref 2).
The garden, developed on municipal land with guidance from the Ypiranga Martinique NGO, support from the local school, and collaboration from various stakeholders, now plays a vital role in the area. It raises awareness about agroecology, offers socioeconomic opportunities, promotes healthier lifestyles, and fosters social connections among residents. Spanning approximately 1,000 m², the site includes an office, a covered area, tool storage containers, market garden plots, a composting area, and a chicken coop managed by a local resident (Ref 7). In Martinique, such shared urban gardens are increasingly seen as important tools for sustainable development (Ref 5).
The garden, developed on municipal land with guidance from the Ypiranga Martinique NGO, support from the local school, and collaboration from various stakeholders, now plays a vital role in the area. It raises awareness about agroecology, offers socioeconomic opportunities, promotes healthier lifestyles, and fosters social connections among residents. Spanning approximately 1,000 m², the site includes an office, a covered area, tool storage containers, market garden plots, a composting area, and a chicken coop managed by a local resident (Ref 7). In Martinique, such shared urban gardens are increasingly seen as important tools for sustainable development (Ref 5).
Chiangmai Urban Farm
The Chiangmai urban farm was developed on a former landfill site in the Chiangmai city centre area. The project was initiated by a local community architecture studio and supported by various groups of the local NGOs, civic groups and the local government. The project began in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to help vulnerable people in the communities nearby the site to increase food security, improve nutrition and build a self-sufficiency lifestyle. Moreover, the urban farm is designed to be a ‘public space’ that connects people from different backgrounds through agriculture. The Farm consists of various garden plots ideal for short-harvest and long-harvest species, a chicken coop, a plant nursery and a storage area. Knowledge sharing and capacity building are other goals of the project. Accordingly, training and workshops are organised in the bamboo pavilion of the garden. Since its establishment, the urban farm provides the local community with farming and learning opportunities and a space to socialize. The financial background of the project was provided through fundraising and the efforts of volunteers who developed this project into a self-sustaining farm without relying on donations. (Ref.1,2,4,9)
Benchakitti Forest Park
Benchakitti Forest Park was created as the extension of the existing Benchakitti Water Park, which is located near the central business district of Bangkok, Thailand. The Forest Park is built in an old Thai Tobacco Factory area. The main concept of the park is to bring the forest into the city and support urban biodiversity while offering leisure activities for the people. The main features in this project include constructed wetlands, nature learning and exercise trails (for running and bicycling), a learning centre, an urban farming area and multipurpose open space for gathering and event activities. Benchakitti Forest Park can be divided into 2 parts. The first part is a green outdoor area including the wetlands, all trails and an outdoor amphitheatre. This first part was completed and open to the public in 2022. The second part is the renovation of buildings into museums and the creation of an urban farm and other facilities associated with the building. This second part is still under construction. (Ref. 1,2,3)
Pakistan's First Vertical Farm
Pakistan's first vertical farm was developed in the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate in Karachi, on a previous yarn factory. The owner had a background in environmentally friendly and futuristic plant growth technologies and wanted to convert them into a business model. And since "urban agriculture is immune to the constraints of climate", and the country has suffered a decrease in agriculture labour resources and land fragmentation, Sindh Industrial Trading Estate launched vertical farming practices as a business solution. (Ref: 1,5).
In 2016, the owners set up a 60 ft room on the top floor of the old yarn factory into a futuristic farm by using hydroponic techniques to grow kale, rosemary and dozens of other vegetables under the purple glow of LED lights. Later on, the first floor of the factory was converted for vertical farming (Ref: 1). The project is a commercial venture, with agricultural products sold to the finest restaurants and supermarkets in the city. These eco-friendly practices ensure vegetable growth with maximum nutrients and require 90% less water as compared to traditional farming. (Ref: 1, 2)
In 2016, the owners set up a 60 ft room on the top floor of the old yarn factory into a futuristic farm by using hydroponic techniques to grow kale, rosemary and dozens of other vegetables under the purple glow of LED lights. Later on, the first floor of the factory was converted for vertical farming (Ref: 1). The project is a commercial venture, with agricultural products sold to the finest restaurants and supermarkets in the city. These eco-friendly practices ensure vegetable growth with maximum nutrients and require 90% less water as compared to traditional farming. (Ref: 1, 2)
Ningbo Eastern New Town Ecological Corridor
The Ningbo Ecological Corridor is a post-industrial landscape ecological reconstruction project. It is located in the middle of the Eastern New Town in Ningbo, with a total area of 90 hectares [4]. Built upon a typical post-industrial site with degraded ecologies that needs to be healed and would soon become part of a new urbanized district, this project is holistic ecosystem services-oriented, introducing terraced wetland to manage elevation change of the site to slow the flows of urban runoffs from the street down to the river and remove the nutrients [1]. “Before being designed, the site and surrounding areas were fragmented farmland, villages and factories that were planned to be relocated - a typical brownfield in the rural-urban fringe of the southern region of China”[1]. With the implementation of the project, "the original channelized river is transformed into a meandering eco-friendly waterway dotted with tree isles to increase the interface between organisms and water bodies to empower the river’s purification capacity. The project uses productive crops and annual flowers that are rotated to bring seasonal surprise and agricultural vitality to the growing city. Boardwalks are designed to allow visitors to have intimate experience of nature and the nostalgic pastoral landscape. Pavilions made of corten steel floats on wetlands and terraces, giving the ecological corridor a touch of contemporary urban life and art. [1] "As a result, this project demonstrated landscape as an ecological infrastructure that heals the degraded ecological system meanwhile provides social and cultural services to the establishing communities." [1]
Ecological Wetland Park in Tianjin
The Ecological Wetland Park is a 630,000 m2 artificial wetland located in a high tech industrial pioneer zone, adjacent to the Tianjin Harbor. The project was initiated by an agency of the local government and constructed with financial support from the Asian Development Bank (1). The area of the park used to be "a natural coastal salt marsh, which become reclaimed land in the early 2000s. The resulting saline-alkaline area had minimal ecosystem value and use value (as it was not considered to be suitable for agricultural activities either)" (1 p20). The wetland park's objective is threefold: 1) to provide a natural wastewater treatment plant for the industrial area to decrease pollutant discharge into the Bohai Bay and improve water quality; 2) to rehabilitating and restoring the once thriving biodiversity in the Harbor Area and the Hai river's estuary 3) to create a place for recreation and leisure for residents. (1)
The Eco-Valley of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco City
The Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City (SSTEC) is a bilateral project between Singapore and China with a large scale private-sector involvement with the objective to "transform the 34 km2 barren, non-arable land and polluted wastewater ponds into ... a thriving city which is socially harmonious, environmentally-friendly and resource-efficient – a model for sustainable development for 350 000 residents. (1,2). The Eco-Valley is an S-shaped, 11 km green spine that runs through the whole Eco-City connecting its centre with sub-centres, all four residential districts, community spaces, multiple parks, commercial zones, and waterside areas as a scenic park providing a place for connectivity, transit, leisure and recreation for residents (1).
Mary Ellen Welch Greenway
The Mary Ellen Welch Greenway (previously East Boston Greenway) is a mixed-use pathway and linear park built on a former rail corridor" linking several parks in the neighbourhood and also connecting the East Boston district to the beachfront (1, p23). In the 1950s after the Consolidated Rail Corporation stopped using the railways, it became a derelict dumping ground. To the initiation of a local community organisation with the collaboration of governmental authorities, the redevelopment of the area has started as a rail-to-trail conversion program. When completed, the Greenway will link several important open green spaces in the East Boston neighbourhood, increase the acres of park per resident in the area, provide a place for recreational activities and direct greenway to the Boston Harbor (1). Furthermore, with water management amenities the area would serve as a buffer zone in case of flooding by barricading the waterfront. (1)
Indigenous Nature-Based Solutions
"In Winnipeg, there are several downtown neighbourhood groups (such as the Spence Neighborhood Association, and the West Broadway Community Organization) that make use of vacant urban space for the benefit of indigenous communities, and encourage them to maintain green spaces, ‘tot lots’, and a network of dozens of community gardens. There are also community-led indigenous ‘healing lodges’, Indigenous gardens, medicine gardens, as well as a land-based education programs (e.g. Marymound) using gardening to help at-risk indigenous youth heal from trauma and build resilience in these neighbourhoods." (1 p41).
One such community gardens are the Chief Grizzly Bear’s Garden (in its official, Anishinaabe name: Ogimaa Gichi Makwa Gitigaan) focusing on increasing the visibility of the indigenous community in the Spence Neighbourhood and providing public space for gathering and traditional indigenous ceremonies honoring their connection to nature. The garden is also the place for cultivating native plants significant for traditional medicine practices (1).
Another NBS initiative supporting the indigenous community in Winnipeg will be the Clan Mothers Healing Village and Knowledge Centre (CMVH) initiated by The Elders of Winnipeg. The CMVH will be located in rural Manitoba and provide a land-based, nurturing community living environment for indigenous women and youth who have been victims of intergenerational trauma, sexual/domestic violence, or human trafficking and support their reintegration into society. (1,2)
One such community gardens are the Chief Grizzly Bear’s Garden (in its official, Anishinaabe name: Ogimaa Gichi Makwa Gitigaan) focusing on increasing the visibility of the indigenous community in the Spence Neighbourhood and providing public space for gathering and traditional indigenous ceremonies honoring their connection to nature. The garden is also the place for cultivating native plants significant for traditional medicine practices (1).
Another NBS initiative supporting the indigenous community in Winnipeg will be the Clan Mothers Healing Village and Knowledge Centre (CMVH) initiated by The Elders of Winnipeg. The CMVH will be located in rural Manitoba and provide a land-based, nurturing community living environment for indigenous women and youth who have been victims of intergenerational trauma, sexual/domestic violence, or human trafficking and support their reintegration into society. (1,2)
