Water, Green & Cities
Rivers and green spaces across them are, often, among the few open spaces survived to urbanization. Their conservation is fundamental and their restoration can give the possibility to include multi-purpose solutions to increase the biodiversity, find new social recreation areas, and help in flood mitigation.
IRIDRA, also in collaboration with other professionals, proposes a new multi-purpose design concept for urban green areas.
More information
IRIDRA's experience
IRIDRA always pays particular attention to optimal landscaping of the designed nature-based systems, especially in urban context. Indeed, the design of a nature-based system in an urban and peri-urban area can always be seen as an occasion to exploit multiple ecosystem services and to restore the urban environment. In particular, constructed wetland aimed to improve water quality can be seen as a way to restore new park in river areas, increasing the utilization and the environmental education value of urban green areas. An example is the "Water Park" of Gorla Maggiore (VA - Italy), designed by IRIDRA. Apart from other goals of water quality and flood mitigation, the park integrates a nature-based solution for combined sewer overflow treatment in a park in which the ecosystem services of naturalistic and recreational benefits are maximised (Masi et al., 2016).
Multipurpose green infrastructure that integrates different ecosystem services in the detention basin of Cento: water quality improvement during not flooding period, recreational area, environmental education and biodiversity increase.
References
IRIDRA's authors are highlighted in bold.
Masi, F., Rizzo, A., Bresciani, R. and Conte, G.. Constructed wetlands for combined sewer overflow treatment: Ecosystem services at Gorla Maggiore, Italy. Ecological Engineering, in press, 2016.
Liquete, C., Udias, A., Conte, G., Grizzetti, B. and Masi, F., 2016. Integrated valuation of a nature-based solution for water pollution control. Highlighting hidden benefits. Ecosystem Services, 22, pp.392-401.
