Designed urban greenery for a healthy living environment

Project period
2024-05-01 - 2028-04-30

“Benefits from urban greenery for health and well-being, as well as relevance for climate adaptation and energy efficiency, are well recognized. Guidelines for inclusion of greenery in urban environments has therefore been widely presented, from global down to the local level. Despite this, cites struggle to develop and maintain greenery. It is often difficult to make economic valuations of urban greenery and thus motivate costs.

Furthermore, there is hard competition for the limited space in dense urban environments. Urban greening is often focused on trees, which require a substantial amount of space both above and below ground. For a more realistic approach to reach the goals for urban greenery, trees must be combined with different types of small-scale greenery, such as green roofs, walls and plant beds. In this project we aim to remove obstacles preventing the full realisation of multifunctional urban greenery in a sustainable city. Through collaboration between academic, public and private sector, we will jointly develop realistic solutions of how trees and small-scale urban greenery can be combined to design living environments for health and well-being in areas typically lacking green structure. We will identify which types of greenery are suitable in different types of environments, address relevant conflicts and synergies, and fill knowledge gaps to present a holistic analysis of the multifunctionality of each solution.”

Partners:

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute

Malmö Municipality

SLU - Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

FOJAB