ReBioClim

Because of the economic pressure on land, urban streams have become increasingly invisible: overbuilt, channelized, or degraded. But in times of global warming, declining biodiversity, and continued pressures of urbanization, revitalized urban streams become highly valuable to form green and blue corridors contributing to climate adaptation in overheated cities or providing fresh air corridors. Restored streams can also be or connect floral and faunal habitats. Mainly, they are important recreational areas for human wellbeing. However, the restoration of streams in urban areas may face a lot of barriers and challenges: amongst others the lack of space, property rights of surrounding land, different stakeholder interests, few acceptances, and issues of flood protection.

The aims of ReBioClim are to promote biodiversity and climate adaptation, but even more to improve the quality of life in cities using natural instead of technical constructions in the streams. With a participatory approach including many different stakeholders, the awareness, appreciation, and knowledge about the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services should be enhanced, and widely acceptable measures identified. To face the above-mentioned challenges and to improve the planning, application, and management of these so-called nature-based solution (NbS), an integrated analysis of ecology, stakeholder interests, institutional frameworks, social perspectives, and urban space requirements will be performed.

The real-world areas of ReBioClim are along four streams in Dresden (DE), Jablonec nad Nisou (CZ), Poznan (PL), and Senica (SK). Strategies and action plans will be developed to foster the successful implementation of NbS. By the help of co-design workshops with the most active stakeholders, the project team will develop a best-practice guide on preferable NbS as well as a handbook giving practical guidance to urban stream restoration, applicable to streams in several central European cities. These outputs shall enable practitioners and decision-makers in urban planning to utilize NbS for multifunctional urban areas strengthening biodiversity and ecosystem services.