Research Agenda for Biocities

With increa­sing popu­la­tions and cli­mate change, cities today face nume­rous chal­lenges, such as cli­mate change, popu­la­tion growth, pan­de­mics, which threa­ten their sus­tai­nable deve­lop­ment. This asks for a fun­da­men­tal revi­sion of exis­ting infra­struc­tures and para­digms of city deve­lop­ment, and the mana­ge­ment of its green and blue resources. In this context, urban forests are vital, as they pro­vide a wide range of eco­sys­tem ser­vices (e.g. water puri­fi­ca­tion, CO2 seques­tra­tion) and have the poten­tial to re-shape and re-think our cities. 

In the ReBio pro­ject, we will iden­ti­fy know­ledge gaps and based on these we will deve­lop a research agen­da for future Bio­ci­ties. The research agen­da will be deve­lo­ped by consi­de­ring urban forests from dif­ferent pers­pec­tives (e.g. social, eco­no­mic, eco­lo­gic). These pers­pec­tives will allow us to iden­ti­fy syner­gies, trade-offs and know­ledge gaps within and bet­ween diverse aspects of Bio­ci­ties, enabling us to deve­lop an inno­va­tive Research Agen­da that meets the cur­rent needs of cities and pro­poses solu­tions for exis­ting challenges.

Project management:
School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL (Jerylee Wilkes-Allemann)
Project duration:
01.10.2020 –
31.10.2022
Project partner:
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU); University of Freiburg; Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; Delft University of Technology; University of Belgrade; Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL; Pan Bern AG; European Forest Institute Network Fund