Earthwatch Europe has published a new Impact Report summarising the results of an international research programme.
With support from the HSBC Water Programme and researchers around the world, the research programme led by Earthwatch Europe addressed four core areas of urban climate resilience through nature-based solutions: carbon capture, flood mitigation, thermal comfort and water quality.
The newly-published Impact Report provides a summary of this research, which took place in 17 major cities around the world, and addresses the opportunities and complexities of implementing urban nature-based solutions in different regional contexts. The research is improving understanding of the function of urban green and blue spaces, necessary to inform policy on the value of integrating nature-based solutions into urban design. This research has also been published in nine different peer-reviewed articles in the recent Special Issue of Sustainability MPDI academic journal.
The report also demonstrates how citizen scientists (non-professionals actively involved in scientific research) can play a vital role in research, which has important implications for urban resilience. The report highlights that the citizen scientists helped to collect more data, and from a greater temporal and spatial range, than would be possible using trained scientists alone. The involvement of citizens also resulted in the creation of new methodologies that can be applied to different urban contexts beyond this project, and further benefits for both the local community and the wider research bodies.
