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The Bilbao Greenbelt project aims to expand and connect the city's green areas. It has already led to 1 million extra square metres of green areas in Bilbao in the last 10 years. The project aims to create a network linking the peripheral green belt with urban parks and other green areas inside the city. It has been successful in bringing climate-change mitigation and adaptation concerns into urban planning. The project has also influenced local policy and the revision of the Master Plan, which wass due for preliminary approval in 2018. The Greenbelt Expansion are NBS that will greatly improve the city's resilience to climate change. It will also foster social and economic cohesion, well-being, health, and leisure opportunities, and make the city more attractive for residents and visitors.Ecosystem services:<ul><li>Water management:<ul><li>Water flow regulation and run off mitigation</li></ul></li><li>Air quality:<ul><li>Climate regulation by reduction of CO2;</li><li>Regulation of air quality by urban trees and forests;</li><li>Urban temperature regulation</li></ul></li><li>Public health wellbeing:<ul><li>Nature based recreation</li></ul></li><li>Green space management:<ul><li>Habitat and gene pool regulation</li><li>Lifecycle regulation</li></ul></li><li>Links to further Ecosystem-based Approaches:<ul><li>Ecosystem-based adaptation (EBA);</li><li>Green Infrastructure (GI)</li></ul></li></ul>Impacts:<ul><li>Enhancing sustainable urbanisation:<ul><li>Increase accessibility to green open spaces;</li><li>Increase well-being;</li><li>Provision of health benefits</li></ul></li><li>Restoring ecosystems and their functions:<ul><li>Improve connectivity and functionality of green and blue infrastructures;</li><li>Increase Biodiversity</li></ul></li><li>Developing climate change mitigation:<ul><li>Carbon sequestration and storage</li></ul></li><li>Developing climate change adaptation; improving risk management and resilience:<ul><li> Increase infiltration / Water storage;</li><li>Increasing infiltration;</li><li>Reduce run-off</li><li>Reducing temperature at meso or micro scale</li></ul></li></ul>
Key lessons:<ul><li>Local authorities clearly understand that NBS projects have multiple benefits. This is evident in Bilbao's upcoming Master Plan, which strongly promotes NBS as a means of achieving the city's four main objectives.</li><li>Having a local project partner contact made the relationship between the RAMSES FP7 project and the local authority much easier.</li><li>Bilbao's history of successfully managing severe crises with commitment and creativity has helped it to adopt innovative measures.</li></ul>
Economic constraints are the major factor that limits the adoption of NBS in Bilbao. In addition, local technical staff have little time available to collaborate in EU-level research projects. Another limiting factor is that even though the city was a partner in EU research projects, this has not incentivised it to subsequently apply for funds to implement the project's findings.
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The local authorities promote stakeholder and citizen participation in urban-planning decisions, but these participatory processes have not yet been formalised.
<ol><li>Acero, J.A; Katzschner, L. (2015). Urban Climatic map studies in Spain, Bilbao in Edward Ng, Chao Ren (ed.) The Urban Climatic Map: A Methodology for Sustainable Urban Planning, pg. 315-323.</li><li>Acero, J. A., Santa Coloma, O., Albizu, M., Castillo, C. and Barquin, M. (2005). Risk of episodes in the Basque Country. Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Air Quality. Valencia, Spain, 29–31 March.</li><li>Acero, J. A., Zeberio, U., Azkune, S. and Santa Coloma, O. (2007). Air quality levels in the Basque Country (Spain): Source contribution and meteorology influence. Paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Urban Air Quality. Nicosia, Cyprus, 27–29 March.</li><li>Acero, J. A., Arrizabalaga, J., Kupski, S. and Katzschner, L. (2013a). Urban heat island in a coastal urban area in northern Spain. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 113(1–2): 137–154. doi: 10.1007/s00704-012-0774-z.</li><li>Acero, J. A., Arrizabalaga, J., Kupski, S. and Katzschner, L. (2013b). Deriving an Urban Climate Map in coastal areas with complex terrain in the Basque Country (Spain). Urban Climate, 4: 35–60. doi: 10.1016/j. uclim.2013.02.002. Millan,</li><li>M., Alonso, L., Legarreta, J., Albizu, M., Ureta, I. and Egusquiaguirre, C. (1984). A fumigation episode in an industrialized estuary: Bilbao, November 1981. Atmospheric Environment, 18(3): 563–572.</li><li>Millan, M., Otamendi, E., Alonso, L, and Ureta, I. (1987). Experimental characterization of atmospheric diffusion in complex terrain with land-sea interactions. JAPCA, 37(7): 807–811.</li><li>Zorraquino, J. (1971). Datos y comentarios sobre la Contaminación del Aire en Erandio (Bilbao) en 1969. DYNA, 1: 19–29.</li><li>European Commission financed FP7 project RAMSES and authored by VITO and Tecnalia as D4.1 “Validation of agglomeration-scale climate projections” (2014).</li><li>European Commission financed FP7 project RAMSES and authored by VITO and Tecnalia as D4.2 “Agglomeration-scale urban climate and air quality projections” (2015).</li><li>European Commission financed FP7 project RAMSES and authored by NTNU and Tecnalia (2014).</li><li>European Commission financed FP7 project ECONADAPT and authored by Paolo Scussolini (VUA), Kateřina Kaprová and Jan Melichar (CUNI), Elisa Sainz de Murieta (BC3), Ibon Galarraga (BC3), Manuel Lago, Josselin Rouillard; Jenny Troeltzsch (ECOLOGIC INSTITUTE)</li><li>European Commission financed FP7 project ECONADAPT and authored by Paolo Scussolini (VUA), Kateřina Kaprová and Jan Melichar (CUNI), Elisa Sainz de Murieta (BC3), Alina Tepes (BC3), Ibon Galarraga (BC3), Josselin Rouillard, Jenny Troeltzsch and Manuel Lago (ECOLOGIC INSTITUT)</li><li>European Commission financed FP7 project RAMSES and authored by NTNU and Tecnalia as D4.3 “Urban Adaptation effects on Urban Climate” (2016).</li><li>European Commission financed FP7 project RAMSES and authored by NTNU (2014). AZTI Tecnalia (2011). European Commission financed FP7 project RAMSES and authored by LSE & SENECA as D5.1 (2014).</li><li>European Commission financed FP7 project RAMSES and authored by UVSQ as D7.1 (2014). http://www.bilbao.eus/cs/Satellite?cid=3000076722&language=en&p… http://www.bilbao.eus/Agenda21/documentos/MEMORIA_PAGASARRI.pdf Main FP7-RAMSES and H2020-RESIN contributions for BILBAO http://www.ramses-cities.eu/fileadmin/uploads/Deliverables_Uploaded/ram… http://www.ramses-cities.eu/fileadmin/uploads/Deliverables_Uploaded/201… http://www.ramses-cities.eu/fileadmin/uploads/Deliverables_Uploaded/ram… http://www.ramses-cities.eu/fileadmin/uploads/Deliverables_Uploaded/D4… http://www.ramses-cities.eu/index.php?eID=tx_nawsecuredl&u=0&fi… http://www.bilbao.eus/aurrerago/pdfs/memoria_propositiva_tomoI_memoria… http://www.bilbao.eus/blogs/pgou/video-presentacion/ http://www.bilbao.eus/blogs/pgou/visualiza</li></ol>
The city runs along the Bilbao estuary, which extends from the southeast to the northwest and is surrounded by two mountain ranges that run parallel to the waterway. The mountain ranges are highest in the west, where they reach 700 m