Filling European cities with trees helps address the socio environmental challenges linked to sustainability. This aligns with the Erasmus+ Uforest project, co-financed by the European Commission and backed by an international consortium of universities, public administrations, and companies with Spanish participation. The aim is to offer a fresh approach to urban forestry.
The project rests on a clear foundation: urbanization is a global trend. The United Nations reports that 55.5 percent of the world population currently lives in urban areas, a share expected to reach 68 percent by 2050 and 84 percent in Europe by that year.
Rising urbanization brings higher population concentrations in cities and brings environmental and health challenges. Experts agree these trends affect quality of life, biodiversity, resilience in urban spaces, and the health and well-being of residents and their environment. Studies indicate that having trees within 100 meters of a home correlates with improved mental health.
To foster practical, solution oriented action, two important strategies have emerged in recent years.
The first centers on the Sustainable Development Goals 17 set by the United Nations as a global plan to address economic, social and environmental issues with a 2030 horizon. Nature-based solutions NbS form a core part of these efforts.
Urban forests are viewed as effective NbS that support human well being and biodiversity, addressing global and social challenges.
Benefits of urban forests
Urban forestry is an interdisciplinary field that studies, plans, implements and manages tree based urban green infrastructure. The project promoters say the goal is to highlight the psychological, sociological, aesthetic, economic and environmental benefits urban forests provide to society.
Urban forestry can play a key role in achieving the SDGs by improving city sustainability, ensuring clean water, boosting income and job opportunities, enabling outdoor recreation, supporting biodiversity, promoting a green economy and contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Pushing for innovation in urban forestry can magnify these benefits, delivering more effective, efficient and equitable results.
Innovative approaches in urban forestry can optimize services while solving local environmental and social problems from a multidisciplinary view.
The emphasis remains that there is a need to explore innovation in urban forestry, scale such initiatives and strengthen collaboration across different actors and disciplines, facilitating the co creation of knowledge.
Urban forestry should go hand in hand with entrepreneurship. Recognizing urban forests as crucial contributions to greener, healthier, more resilient and livable cities, the Uforest team is committed to researching sectors and creating new opportunities to better adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
Urban forests improve air and water quality, support biodiversity, enhance people’s health and well being, and reduce urban heat island effects, according to supporters of the project.
Innovative and profitable solutions
For these reasons, cities worldwide set ambitious urban reforestation goals to meet evolving needs. Many face high costs and require long term citizen participation and institutional capacity to implement urban forestry solutions.
From this reality emerges Uforest, formally the European Alliance Project on Interdisciplinary Learning and Entrepreneurial Innovation for Urban Forests. It is a three year initiative called Alliance for Knowledge and is co financed by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Commission.
The project creates cross industry alliances that bring together universities, companies and public administrations, bridging traditionally separate disciplines such as forestry and urban ecology with socio economics and information and communication technologies ICT, as well as urban planning and architecture.
Alliance serves as a foundation for development. New training and support for students and professionals works on innovative urban forestry projects.
The aim is to streamline information among project members, encourage multidisciplinary education on urban forestry, and promote innovative and economically viable solutions for urban forestry and business ideas.
The Spanish participants in this ambitious project, supported by Brussels, include Autonomous University of Barcelona, CREAF and Agresta a forest management and innovation consultancy. Participants from the Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Romania, Finland and Italy are also involved.
Uforest has a dedicated platform for more information and updates.
Source notes are cited where relevant to provide context and verification of statements.