(Not) In My Backyard: The Importance of Green Gardens

Transforming cities in the face of climate change. It is needed, it is happening, and it is the goal of the municipality of Leiden with their new project ‘de duurzaamste kilometer’.  However, making the station area of Leiden the most sustainable kilometer of the Netherlands before 2025 requires enormous efforts. Literally changing the city center into an urban jungle is meant to decrease the heat island effect, flooding issues, as well as to increase the biodiversity. Green roofs, parks, trees,  are supposedly all going to be implemented. The question is, is it enough?

What this project seems to be missing is a fundamental approach that is inclusive of citizens. Joop Spijkers, founder of the renowned dutch institute Alterra, explains in an interview with Radio1 that municipalities should not carry the only responsibility for a greener city (minute 5:20). The behavior of citizens is contributing to the problem as well as they are the key to the solution. Plus, in the end, they are the the ones that will have to directly deal with the effects of flooding basements, gardens and streets that are bound to happen with the more and more severe rainfall.  

In most European cities, including the Netherlands, people increasingly replace greens with concrete and pavement. By now 44% of Dutch gardens are paved. Considering that 15% less soil sealing results in plus 24% runoff mitigation, this needs to change. A lot of research has been done on why paving your garden is so popular,  boiling down to a combination of urbanization, increased car ownership (and thus need for parking spaces) and above all the fashion of low maintenance gardens.

Sealed soil prohibits gradual runoff mitigation.

Although no legal instruments are in place yet to support ‘green gardens,’ many initiatives are trying to boost vegetation in domestic gardens.  A great example would be the operation ‘Steenbeek’ that is trying to change the Not-in-my-backyard attitude into BIMBY (biodiversity in my backyard). A philosophy thought of by Beumer and Martens for incorporating  more green in our direct living environments.

Do not worry, there is no need for high maintenance vegetation. With the tips and tricks of Steenbeek and many other initiatives your garden or balcony is transformed in no time. Additionally, financial subsidies up to 300 euros, for example introduced by the city of Leeuwarden, will make it less and less expensive.  The introduced ‘tuintegeltaks’ in certain cities, where you pay increased sewage-taxes for the amount of pavement in your garden, will actually increase the price of not implementing green in the future. 

Although, Leiden should be praised for its efforts to make the city center more sustainable and green, they could or actually should undertake more efforts to motivate citizens to contribute to the solution. To repeat the words of Beumer and Martens: “Gardens are small parts of the urban ecosystem that are closest to residents and have a great potential for contributing to larger green infrastructure and (urban) ecosystem services.” And thus collaboration between the municipality (green public spaces) and citizens (green gardens) will be the key to success.

Scientific background:

Beumer, C., & Martens, P. (2015). Biodiversity in my (back) yard: towards a framework for citizen engagement in exploring biodiversity and ecosystem services in residential gardens. Sustainability Science, 10(1), 87-100.

European Commission. (2012). Science for environment policy, DG Environmnet New Alert Service. In depth report: Soil sealing,. doi:10.2779/75498

Jong, M. D. (2015). Ecosystem services delivery by urban green infrastructure in Utrecht, the Netherlands (master thesis). Deltares, Utrecht.

 

 

 

‘Green Your City Competition’

Singapore the ‘Garden City’

Green Your City Competition

Over the past century we witnessed a constant trend, shifting the lives of people increasingly away from rural settings to the urban sphere. Whereas, currently around 54% of the world population lives in cities, this number is expected to rise to a full two-third of the human population (Hawley 2014). In the eyes of the ubiquitous threat that climate change poses not only for the continuation of vital ecosystem services, but for the very livelihood of our cities. It is indispensable prerequisite to adapt our cities in a sustainable fashion in order to be prepared for whatever changes the future might bring. Singapore, also known as the ‘Garden City’ is a prime example of a sustainable city, that has despite its growing population, managed to incorporate various types of biodiversity, such as green roofs, cascading vertical gardens, and many other forms of greenery, into its urban landscape. Singapore sets a benchmark for all cities to strive for, but how can this be achieved if a city has considerably less financial means?

The ‘Green Your City Competition’

The Green Your City Competition brings together citizens, eco-tourism agencies, municipalities, and many other stakeholders in cities all over Europe, in a combined effort to green our cities. How will this be done?

In a close collaboration with an environmentally conscious search machine, such as Ecosia that plants a tree for every search you do, through its ad revenue. By expanding this concept from solely deforested areas to cities, the energetic capacity of our society can be used in a communal effort to restore the biodiversity that has once been lost in our cities.

Implementation:

European Cities that are interested in participating will work in close collaboration with city specific agencies that are willing to put advertisement on the search engine. This could for example been done by eco-tourism agencies that have a high interest in attracting more people to their city. It is then the job of the municipality and environmental agencies to campaign the initiative to its citizens, in order to incorporate a wide-spread use of the ‘green search engine’. Specifically, for this purpose the ‘green search engine’ will be adapted next to its original purpose to a city specific context, in that once the citizens connect to the browser they will have the opportunity to type in the name of their city. This way it will be clear how much of the revenue created in the form of trees, greenwalls, green roofs etc. will be devoted to each city.

Which form will this endeavour take?

The municipality together with its citizens will make a business plan, deciding on the part of the city that need improvement, and in what form this will be done. Thus, depending on the problems the city is facing, they could for example decide to plant more trees in parking spaces, or construct green walls to counter the heat island effect of highly paved areas. Indeed, this can be realized in any way that seems appropriate for the city-specific case. Once enough revenue has been collected the city will receive the money for the assertion of the project. This will be done under close supervision by the ‘Green Your City’ committee to ensure the correct usage of the money. Lastly, the surplus of funds initially aimed on greening related projects ought to be used for the continued maintenance of those newly planted areas.

Benefits

By mobilizing the energetic society through an incentive of a better living environment, facilitated through the little effort of simply using a new search engine, the cities will not only be able to carry out their vision for a sustainable future, but this will set an incentive for cities all over the world to follow their example.

For further information concerning sustainable search engines, look at: https://info.ecosia.org/what

 

Work Cited:

Hawley, Kate. 2014. “Transforming Cities For Sustainability: Facts And Figures”. Scidev.Net. https://www.scidev.net/global/cities/feature/transforming-cities-sustainability-facts-figures.html.