Urban green spaces as a climate adaptation strategy
Praille Acacias Vernets © DPAV
An interdisciplinary journal focusing on the interactions between cities and their environmental and climatic challenges, City and Environment Interactions has just published an article presenting the results of the “Maillages fertiles” research project, led by the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST). Entitled “Urban green spaces as a climate adaptation strategy. Case study in Geneva, Switzerland” and co-authored by Dr. Sophie Lufkin and Prof. Emmanuel Rey, the article explores the potential of innovative green public spaces as a climate adaptation strategy aimed at making the urban environment viable, attractive, and resilient.
In a global context marked by the urgency of climate change, dwindling resources, and environmental crisis, concrete action towards ecological transition and climate adaptation has become a top priority for the built environment. This first requires drastically reducing carbon emissions, preserving arable land for agriculture, and protecting natural ecosystems —primarily by promoting qualitative densification strategies that reorient urban development inward.
However, while these ongoing densification processes are essential, they are not sufficient to address the multiple dimensions of the urban transition. Besides the question of built volumes, the need to consider the nature of unbuilt spaces, with a public and/or semi-public vocation, is more crucial than ever. Supporting the ecological transition also means (re)designing our urban open spaces to anticipate and adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change.
The challenges faced by (semi-)public open spaces are therefore highly complex. They include, among others, creating green areas that foster relaxation, well-being, and physical and mental health; integrating productive surfaces for urban agriculture; developing habitats conducive to biodiversity; managing rainwater ecologically and reducing surface runoff; mitigating urban heat islands; and reclaiming the public realm for the benefit of inhabitants.
In response to these multiple challenges, the article seizes the opportunity of the “Espaces Rivières” project –which involves the reopening and renaturation of two urban rivers in Geneva, Switzerland– to explore the potential of innovative green open spaces as a climate adaptation strategy aimed at making the urban environment viable, desirable and resilient. The multi-criteria evaluation methodology developed in the framework of the “Maillages fertiles” research project, conducted by the LAST Laboratory, is based on three main steps: 1) selecting best practice neighborhoods across Switzerland and Europe, 2) defining six relevant indicators along with their reference and average values, and 3) presenting the results in a synoptic radar diagram to situate “Espaces Rivières” relative to standard practice and benchmark neighborhoods.
The article concludes with recommendations to enhance the “Espaces Rivières” project, such as additional tree planting, increasing green surfaces, and slightly reducing human density to better align with reference values. More broadly, the findings show that, given the scale of the climate adaptation challenge, a combination of all possible approaches will be necessary to achieve the ambitious goals of urban transition towards improved climate resilience.v