Informations
Solution ID
Description of solution
Objective:
- Enhancing sustainable urbanization
- Restoring ecosystems and their functions
- Developing climate change mitigation
- Developing climate change adaptation; improving risk management and resilience
The city has taken a series of measures in the context of the Master Development Plan. The plan sets out guidelines and objectives for specific planning and local development. In particular, the municipal ecological structure takes into account ecological principles and the importance of preserving natural, forest, agricultural and cultural heritage. Together with the Biodiversity 2020 Strategy, the city also approved the Biodiversity Action Plan in 2016, putting implementation actions in the context of green infrastructure and climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Connecting green spaces by creating green corridors has been one of the main priorities. The best example is the Main Green Corridor, connecting Monsanto Forest Park to the city centre through Eduardo VII Park. Furthermore, the Eixo Central revamping project, currently being developed, shows how planting street trees and making green areas can create synergies and improve existing grey infrastructure. This helps reduce traffic, giving pedestrians and cyclists more space. Greening these infrastructures makes better ecological connections possible and contributes to air pollution control. Street trees make the city more attractive, better connect green spaces and provide shade for cyclists. As part of its Green Plan (2008), Lisbon also set up a working group to promote and enhance urban agriculture, emphasized in the Biodiversity 2020 Strategy.
While these measures have been planned separately at different times, taken together, they can be seen to have clearly enabled synergies in tackling a series of social challenges by providing key ecosystem services.
Thus, even if not explicitly following a systemic NBS approach from the outset, the cumulative effect of these measures is greater than merely a series of individual projects.
Lessons Learnt:
In the 1998 World Exhibition, the city of Lisbon promoted the regeneration of its eastern waterfront, today known as Parque das Nações. Previously an obsolete industrial area, with contaminated soil, today the area boasts 110 ha of green spaces, real estate, business centres and modern transport connections. Although it did not adopt an NBS approach from the beginning, the project made it possible to regenerate an obsolete and contaminated area through sustainable urbanisation, with the emphasis on green spaces. The project made better connections with Lisbon's ecological structure possible, as well as pollution control and monitoring. It has also made it possible to requalify the Tagus river salt marshes, focusing on biodiversity conservation and monitoring (especially migratory birds). This in turn created new opportunities for birdwatching tourism.
Success and limiting factors:
The urban regeneration measures taken so far have shown how the restoration of Lisbon’s historical quarters and its riverfront, using nature-based solutions, helps both to improve the wellbeing of its inhabitants and make the city more attractive. The Riverfront General Plan, being implemented since 2008 (see Figure 5) has been promoting regeneration of the riverfront based on environmental concerns, making Lisbon more competitive as a welcoming city for people and investments. It includes measures for the integration into the city’s ecological structure (further connection with other green areas and corridors in the city, as well as the city's drainage plan for flood control). It creates a diverse range of leisure and sports activities, joining the new urban spaces with the river and protecting the city from rising sea water levels due to climate change (Lisbon: a new relationship with the river).
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Publications and reports: -> Allegretti G., Antunes S. (2014) The Lisbon Participatory Budget: results and perspectives on an experience in slow but continuous transformation. Field Actions Science Reports [Online], Special Issue 11. -> AIVP (2015) Lisbon: a new relationship with the river. The city port projects of the network members: Case studies. -> Green Surge: Lisbon case study. -> Mata, D. (2014) Lisbon´s Green Plan Actions: Towards a Green City. Abstract of the presentation on ‘Cost Action 1201 ‘Urban Allotment Gardens in European Cities - Future, Challenges and Lessons Learned’ at LNEC – 20th March 2014. Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Portugal. -> Oliveira S., Andrade H., Vaz T. (2011) The cooling effect of green spaces as a contribution to the mitigation of urban heat: A case study in Lisbon. Building and Environment 46, pp. 2186-2194. -> Soares A. L. et al. (2011) Benefits and costs of street trees in Lisbon, Portugal. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 10: 2, pp. 69–78. -> http://www.cm-lisboa.pt/viver/ambiente/corredores-verdes/vale-de-alcantara/galeria
The most common ways of financing the implementation of nature-based measures are: -> the municipal budget (general); -> municipal budget, decided on through participatory budget voting; -> European funds (mostly structural and cohesion funds 2007-2013); -> Lisbon´s Casino direct funding obligations; -> partnerships with private companies resulting from municipal taxation and charges for permission to use public space during occasional events or as direct compensation from services that require municipal authorisation; -> sponsorship from national and private companies.