Creating greener cities

Green and blue spaces - parks, trees, rivers, lakes - are vital to the fabric of city life. They cool our streets during heatwaves, reduce air pollution, and provide much-needed peace and quiet in a world full of noise. More than just pretty landscapes, these spaces have real, measurable benefits for both people and the environment.

City planners are being urged to integrate more of these green and blue spaces into urban designs. In the UK, for example, the Green Infrastructure Framework aims to increase urban green cover to 40% in residential areas.

To help planners achieve these goals, we are creating new tools and models to better understand what the benefits are, make a case for investment in green and blue spaces, and find the best places to create or enhance these in our cities.

City Explorer Toolkit

The City Explorer Toolkit is an interactive web-based tool, which helps planners to understand where best to create urban green and blue spaces to ensure that benefits are received by the people who need them most.

The tool uses models and spatial data to calculate the benefits of different green infrastructure and nature-based solutions to tackle challenges in cities such as heatwaves, air pollution and flood risk. It also uses population and social data to work out which groups of people will benefit most from a particular option.

The toolkit can be used to:

Explore population, social and pressure datasets to see where the need is greatest.
Run models that calculate the benefits of current green and blue space.
View maps of ‘potential’ for users to plan the best locations for new green and blue space.
Visualise and download summary information.

We have toolkits running for Portsmouth in the UK, and Aarhus in Denmark, and have applied the models in cities across the globe, helping planners make informed decisions that promote a more sustainable future. If your city is interested in using the City Explorer Toolkit, please get in touch.

We could do even more…

Our scientists are working on a carbon stocks model that could be integrated into the Toolkit to further support cities in achieving their net zero goals. With additional funding, this new feature could be released sooner. To find out more or support our initiative, please contact us.

The toolkit can help design better outcomes for young people in cities. Read more.

Research shows nature in cities is vital for improved health and climate resilience. Read more.