Nordregio and NordForsk
Nordic cities have qualities to draw on when it comes to greenspace, social inclusion and public health. But they are also segregated, characterised by health-related divides and by differences in accessibility to urban amenities. Without careful consideration, the health and well-being of city-dwellers can be negatively influenced in overly densified and congested cities, despite sustainability ambitions. NORDGREEN is tackling the issue by developing and implementing smart planning and management solutions for well-designed, high-quality greenspaces that promote equity, health and well-being. The project involves sets of local and regional health and greenspace data, Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) applications and surveys, and analysis of ongoing planning and management.
NORDGREEN consists of five workpackages. Workpackage 1 (WP1) is led by Professor Geir Aamodt at NMBU. The overall objective of WP1 is to develop data and indicators for monitoring health in relation to green space characteristics (e.g., size, function, noise) to provide deeper evidence on how human health and well-being is affected by innovative planning, design and management initiatives. Researchers at NMBU will work together with researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences to achieve this objective.
The NORDGREEN project includes the following four research partners: Aalto University (Finland), Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and Nordregio (Sweden). The research will result in co-created, scalable and transferable knowledge-based planning and management tools for the six case cities, as well as for other cities in the Nordic region and beyond. These six case cities/towns are: Aarhus (DK); Stavanger (NO), Vilhelmina (SE), Täby (SE), Espoo (FI) and Ii (FI).
The project is led by Nordregio and funded by the NordForsk programme Sustainable Urban Development and Smart Cities.
Participants
Patrik Grahn
Professor, SLU
Helena Nordh
Researcher, SLU
Partners
Article about the project (in Norwegian)
Hva betyr grøntområder i byen for helse, trivsel og livskvalitet?