Co-creating resilient, sustainable and multifunctional green corridors in Barcelona

Map of the potential Green Corridors inside the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona

The Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB) bares the potential to create more than 750 km. of Green Corridors: urban strips with high presence of vegetation that cross the urban fabric and link the different areas of the city, used mainly by pedestrians and cyclists.

With this in mind, a co-creation workshop organized by ICTA-UAB discussed the different objectives of future Eixos Verds in the AMB. Participants highlighted multifunctionality to be the number one aspect to consider when planning for Eixos Verds. Multifunctionality is understood as the capacity of Eixos Verds to provide multiple benefits, including social and ecological connectivity, habitats and resources for urban wildlife, climate regulation, runoff control and spaces for recreation, among others for the metropolitan society. In particular, it was remarked that Eixos Verds should mainly pursue the connectivity between green infrastructures, serving social and ecological functions. Attendees also stated how relevant it was to consider urban vulnerabilities when designing Eixos Verds, such as heat exposure risks, while ensuring that its implementation would not lead to any losses of existing social and ecological functions, as for instance displacement of residents or wildlife habitat loss.

The co-creation workshop was organized by ICTA researchers from the URBAG team with the assistance of the Barcelona’s Metropolitan Urban Planning Plan team (PDU). It was implemented in an innovative online format and attracted more than forty participants across different sectors (public, academic, private) and planning scales (from municipalities to the Generalitat de Catalunya). The results will be of great use for steering future scientific studies, especially those led by URBAG. In addition, they will offer guidance for the implementation of the Eixos Verds, which are expected to generate improvements on the socio-ecological conditions in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona.

The event inaugurates ICTA’s science-practitioners exchange initiative, which seeks to centralize and collect information from the participatory processes carried out by the institute’s scientists.

More detailed results about the Green Corridors will come after the revision of all the event material. If you want to receive updated information, please visit urbag.eu or subscribe to URBAG’s newsletter.

Meeting capture with some of the participants