’City-centered approach to catalyze nature-based solutions through the EU Regenerative Urban Lighthouse for pollution alleviation and regenerative development’, or UPSURGE for its friends, is a Horizon 2020 project where BURST is a partner organisation. We thought it is time we checked in on this project, so we asked BURST project manager Mihály Kondacs about the project.
“The overall concept of the project is to research, co-create, comparatively test, measure, and digitalise NBS interventions and their effects in different European cities to gain enough validated knowledge to bridge the gaps currently hindering wider implementation of NBS in Europe, particularly in cities,” Kondacs explains. Nature-based solutions, remember, are the techniques that utilise natural ecosystems to solve environmental challenges.
The task of adapting NBS to be suitable for large-scale adoption is not trivial, and the challenges are serious: “Cities are expanding rapidly, contributing to high energy demands and CO₂ emissions, which impact air quality and public health. While Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) offer sustainable, adaptive benefits for climate mitigation and urban well-being, the lack of clear definitions, benchmarks, and proven scalability can limit their effective implementation and lead to financial risks for cities,” explains Kondacs. These are the challenges UPSURGE sets out to solve.
In the project we have three main tasks. First, we lead the ’Matchmaking for tailored NBS implementation in cities’ task, where we “conduct a thorough assessment of environmental and socio-economic challenges across seven partner cities. This involves analyzing 17 key factors — such as air quality, climate vulnerability, socio-economic disparities and mobility — using existing data and new air quality findings”, as Kondacs explains. Second, we oversee the ’Tailor-made plans for operation of sensing systems at demonstration cities’ task. Here, we create customised implementation plans for five cities (Belfast, Breda, Budapest, Katowice, and Maribor). Finally, we support the 18th District of Budapest in their activities like creating climate-adaptive gardens that focus on water retention and air quality.
Still, the behaviour of urban dwellers and decision makers is not easy to change. “To “overwrite” the habits and practices of the target audience (citizens, local businesses, political actors, etc.): this cannot happen from one day to the next, people need to be familiar with the alternatives and have confidence in the process.” Still, change can be achieved and we see an increased positivity towards solutions such as rain gardens in the 18th District of Budapest.
We hope that, by the end of the project, a similar trend will become visible with regard to the digital solutions piloted in the project. Because, at the end of the day, such solutions serve a purpose: to prepare us for a more sustainable, greener, and ultimately, nicer future.