ReciproCITY

Healthy urban waters and watersheds are vital for a city’s capability to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, especially regarding their capacity to store water during times of droughts and heatwaves, and effectively handle water in times of floods. These functions have only partly been replaced by artificial waterbodies typical of the urban areas, such as ponds, rainwater retention areas and canals. Also for the benefit of the citizens, urban waterbodies need to be maintained where they remain in good condition, or restored where they have been degraded, to provide clean drinking water, recreational areas, clean transportation routes, social meeting grounds, essential habitat and to balance the city’s climate. At the same time, degraded and polluted waterbodies are hazards for human health and can drastically reduce a city’s attractiveness for residents and development. Thus, despite their relatively small area, both natural and artificial urban waters are key structures for the sustainable development of cities. ReciproCITY entails measures and activities that go beyond the state of the art of existing nature-based solutions by connecting these in novel ways across cities, countries and continents while addressing the impact of climate change. The project will contribute with significant added value to the EU Research and Innovation agenda by providing evidence and novel tools of how BGS and restorations can be connected to prevent further degradation, improve rehabilitation and provide maintenance measures for urban and peri-urban blue-green ecosystems. In ReciproCITY, the three most recent European Green Capitals (Essen, Nijmegen and Oslo) join forces to synthesise their outstanding experiences with NBS and blue-green infrastructure. All three cities have placed a particular focus on urban waterbodies. They will team up with three CELAC cities (Bogotá, Quito and São Paulo).