GartenLeistungen II Urban Gardens and Parcs: Implementation, stabilization and transfer of approaches for socially, ecologically and economically sustainable management of urban areas and flows of materials

Urban gardens and public parks compete with other uses for scarce space. However, they play a central role in sustainable urban development. They increase the resource efficiency of urban districts and fulfill a variety of social, ecological and economic services for urban society. The GartenLeistungen I project recorded these multidimensional services using selected urban gardens and parks in order to provide robust evidence for political decisions. To this end, material flows (water, biomass, food, energy), ecological aspects (e.g. urban climate, biodiversity) and social impacts (e.g. quality of life, social exchange, transformative learning) were quantified and evaluated.

In the implementation and continuation phase, the GartenLeistungen II project integrated the processes initiated in Berlin and Stuttgart into municipal planning and policy and transferred them to the cities of Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart and Leipzig. This included monitoring the Berlin community garden program, with which the state of Berlin supports community gardening. In a practice-research colloquium, scientists and municipal green space authorities exchanged approaches for climate-resilient park development. In addition, nationwide networking meetings were organized for municipal representatives from the field of community gardens.

The project transferred the solution approaches from the Phase I real-world laboratories on resource efficiency, closing water cycles and local production of food and biomass in urban gardens and parks to other locations together with practitioners from administration, park management and garden initiatives. The evaluation of the services provided by urban gardens and parks was also transferred to municipal parks in Berlin, Stuttgart and Frankfurt as well as allotment gardens in Leipzig. Scenarios of park expansions and losses were also evaluated, published in factsheets and discussed with local decision-makers from administration and politics.

Further results were published in an policy paper with recommendations for action to strengthen community gardens, a brochure on securing space for community gardens and further training materials on the implementation of mobile blue-green infrastructure and discussed at a symposium.

More information (in German): www.gartenleistungen.de

Publications and materials from the first project phase can be found here.