Green, natural, healthy: The potential of multifunctional urban spaces | Umweltbundesamt

Background and Goals

Green spaces and structures in urban areas perform a wide range of functions for the population, many of which could be categorized as "ecosystem services", a subject of increasing discussion in recent years. They serve as areas of leisure, recreation or sports, allow us to observe and experience nature first-hand, encourage social contacts, and, in the case of small allotments, vegetable or fruit gardens and peri-urban agricultural areas, even supply food. In the vicinity of buildings, green spaces and vegetation structures contribute towards reducing summer heat stress, and improve the air quality and air hygiene by filtering pollutants and particulates. They increase the quality of a residential environment and, hence, the quality of life of the residents, while also increasing the economic value of real estate. Green leisure and recreation areas in the vicinity of housing settlements/residential estates even contribute to the protection of the climate by the very fact that they accessible on foot, reducing the motorized traffic that would otherwise be carrying people further afield. In addition to the benefits regarding human needs and interests, green and open spaces contribute to maintaining the biodiversity of their locality as habitats for animals and plants, to groundwater recharging  through water retention and reduced surface runoff, and to the reduction of climate-damaging greenhouse gases through sequestration in the soil and vegetation.

The functions of green spaces and structures in urban environments, some of which are mentioned here, have long been important nature conservation and spatial planning topics. Strangely, so far, the health benefits of green spaces have received little systematic attention of this kind; although human health is considered a protected commodity in the sense of the EIA guidelines, it is a subject that has been somewhat neglected in nature conservation and related planning projects. In this way, the urban nature conservation movement has thus far missed the opportunity to take advantage of existing synergies between its objectives and preventive health care to ensure a broader social and political acceptance of its proposals.

It is the objective of the project to identify synergies and conflicts between nature conservation (especially the conservation of biodiversity) and preventive health care in terms of both the quantity and the quality of urban open spaces, particularly green spaces and structures, and to discuss the consequences for urban nature conservation that arise from them.

Building on this, proposals must be developed for solving such potential conflicts, once identified, as well as opportunities for integrating health issues in formal (landscape, spatial, and building development) and informal planning instruments as often as possible. All of this will also serve to improve the strategies for achieving conservation objectives in urban open and green spaces. To summarize, the functions of these spaces that are especially relevant in this respect are the refuge and recreational functions they fulfil for humans, their importance for local biodiversity, and numerous other ecological functions that are closely tied to our physical well-being and health (e.g., fresh air production and cooling).

In order to be able to include the practical perspective and experience of local and regional administrations, the project will be carried out in cooperation with four model communities: Eckernförde, Leipzig, Munich and Norderstedt. This is as much to determine a practical standpoint in each case, as to show up the necessary requirements for, and obstacles to, integrating health aspects into municipal planning and administration. The cooperation of the model communities extends over the entire duration of the project, in order to take the knowledge of the municipal administrations, their requirements and ideas into account as fully as possible.

Content time

Research area/region

Participants