Project / Initiative
European Union Projects
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Active
GREENHANCENbt
Growing Resilience by Exploring Methods to Enhance Urban Agriculture for Human Well-being, Community and Biodiversity Enrichment
GREENHANCEnbt aims to deepen the understanding of the mechanisms affecting the successful implementation of Nature-based Solutions by focusing on Urban Agriculture (UA) as a key NBS that impacts both biodiversity and human well-being. The research uses a Nature-Based Thinking framework to explore the synergies and trade-offs between enhancing biodiversity and promoting human well-being in urban contexts. The cities of Barcelona, Malmö and Torino will serve as case studies, investigating how UA can address various societal challenges, including climate change, public health, food security and biodiversity loss. The NBT framework incorporates social, ecological, and organizational perspectives, emphasizing the importance of relationships between nature, organizations, and communities.
Urban Agriculture (UA) provides numerous ecosystem services and is relevant to many key societal challenges that NBS seeks to address: climate change, public health, social cohesion, food security, biodiversity loss, agricultural intensification, resource efficiency, urban renewal and regeneration, densification and land management, as well as economic growth. Hence, UA should be considered a key urban NBS. However, many UA initiatives are vulnerable, as they are often developed at small scales and depend on the initiative and dedication of a small number of individuals, with a risk of limited long-term existence and relevance. Moreover, the knowledge generated by UA practices is typically dispersed and is rarely incorporated into formal urban planning, with very low possibilities for knowledge exchange. Therefore, there is a knowledge gap in terms of how UA can best support both ecological and human well-being in different urban contexts. To address these needs, GREENHANCEnbt seeks to understand the critical factors, tipping points, and underlying mechanisms that influence the successful implementation of UA as an NBS that enhances and supports long-term biodiversity as well as promotes/improves human well-being.
Project actions
We will employ a novel framework: Nature-Based Thinking (NBT), which requires a transdisciplinary, integrative and relational approach, where knowledge across social, natural and organizational sciences will be generated and integrated into guidelines for implementing UA as an NBS. NBT aligns with broader systemic approaches addressed in the extensive literature on social-ecological-technological systems.
Project objectives
- Objective 1: Understanding the dynamics of UA as an NBS in relation to biodiversity management and community engagement with nature.
- Objective 2: Exploring the synergies between biodiversity and human well-being in UA.
- Objective 3: Assessing the political dimensions of UA, we will evaluate how various governance arrangements affect UA synergies and trade-offs.
- Objective 4: Identifying and analysing user and stakeholder interests.
