School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape enters nature-based solutions collaboration agreement with the Greater Bay Area of China
Clive Davies has been involved in developing the collaboration
9 May 2024
Following the conclusion in March 2024 of the EU Horizon 2020, CLEARING HOUSE project which was a Sino-Europe collaboration, looking at the role of trees and woodlands (urban forests) as a nature-based solution (UF-NbS). A new collaboration agreement has been agreed between the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, with the Guangzhou Institute of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, The Research Institute of Forestry at the Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, the European Forest Institute (EFI) and the International Centre for China Development Studies at the University of Hong Kong.
The aim of the collaboration is to pursue research and innovation goals in urban forests as a nature-based solution (UF-NbS) and includes cognate information exchange. The collaboration is focused on the Greater Bay Area of China including Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The Greater Bay area is hugely significant in terms of global urbanisation and is facing major challenges in terms of its sustainable development. As context the metropolis has an economic footprint exceeding $1.5tn and a total population of over 70 million people. A notable challenge is how to increase its attractiveness, ecological connectivity and water quality and urban forests have already been proposed as a nature-based solution for river catchment restoration.
Clive Davies who was involved in developing the collaboration which started at a meeting in Brussels in December 2023 and who was senior scientist on the CLEARING HOUSE project at EFI reports that the new joint research collaboration includes, but is not limited to, the restoration of urban biodiversity via innovative UF-NbS; the design, planning, establishment and governance of urban/peri-urban forest landscapes for multiple ecosystem services; ecological restoration of degraded urban landscapes and addressing climate change and carbon neutrality via UF-NBS. A co-learning platform is proposed for visiting scholars amongst the Institutions for the purpose of academic exchanges and skills training.
Image credit: CLEARING HOUSE project (https://clearinghouseproject.eu/project/hong-kong-guangzhou-shenzhen/#1462459412197-1482c7ba-b73a)