27-04-2023 / hannes.schwaiger
Nature-based solutions training workshops in Aarhus and Velika Gorica
REGREEN organised training workshops on NBS for practitioners in Aarhus (October 2022) and Velika Gorica (March 2023) in collaboration with the Paris Region Institute and the two cities and has released the training kit.
Presentation session in Velika Gorica, all credits: ©Gwendoline Grandin
Training workshops on NBS have multiple objectives. Firstly, to redefine the concept as it remains open to different interpretations. The aim is to enable participants to understand the complexities of NBS, identify how they can be applied in different settings and the various approaches it encompasses. In addition, training workshops provide a valuable opportunity to share experiences and feedback, enabling a better understanding of how theoretical concepts can be applied in practical situations. They offer ideas for action and facilitate meetings between agents from different departments within a city, who do not usually work or interact with each other.
The two workshops brought together participants from various fields, including urban planning, ecology, public service management, landscape architecture, etc. They consisted of a field trip and several presentations that covered a wide range of topics: NBS projects in both cities, the role of biodiversity in NBS, renaturing, green roofs, green space quality and water management.
Fifteen employees from the municipality of Aarhus participated in the workshop on 22 October 2022. After a theoretical reminder on NBS, 3 participative focus were proposed: how to improve the ecological quality of urban green spaces? how to evaluate the potential for depaving and renaturing? how to design NBS promoting biodiversity? The day ended with a visit to several areas of the city. The idea was to present some NBS that have been implemented, but above all to visit cases and discuss the possibility of working with different tools to create biodiversity and ecological quality in the areas concerned.
The workshop in Velika Gorica took place over two half days and was attended by 30 participants from different structures with different areas of expertise: Ministry, City of Zagreb and Velika Gorica, NGO, architects, forest managers, urban planners. The first day was dedicated to presentations and sharing of experiences. The workshop ended the next day with a field visit to the city center and the Turopolje forest. It was a good opportunity to try to find solutions for greening a roadside in Velika Gorica. This visit was an opportunity to find several solutions for greening some roadside.
Feedback from the participants at the Aarhus and Velika Gorica training workshops highlight the importance in such days to share a common language about NBS, to convince about their benefits, and to constitute a team to improve their implementation. One idea that came out of these workshops would be to organise this kind of workshop with the inhabitants to reduce fears and received ideas currently related to the idea of bringing nature back to the city or giving it more space.
If you want to know more, you are welcome to check out our NBS training kit that REGREEN has just released, available here.
This document revisits the objectives of the training days, gives recommendations, and lists numerous resources that can be mobilised. Among the resources, you will find the slides of the presentations used during the Aarhus workshop. All you have to do is adapt them to suit your training needs. You can also find D7.2 Training kit for training workshops on Zenodo, here.