Innovative nachhaltige Umweltplanung für periurbane Landschaften (INLAND)

INLAND: Innovative environmental governance for sustainable peri-urban landscapes

Scientific background
The peri-urban landscapes (PULs) are connecting cities with their environment. PUL is a territory which does not fit within jurisdictional boundaries, but covers fully or partially several urban and non-urban municipalities. It is characterized by low density and a mixture of diverse - including non-urban - land-uses. PULs remain under continuous, or even rising urban influence, which is represented by: presence of typical urban forms (e.g. continuous or discontinuous urban patches), diminishing of natural ecosystems. Area of PULs can cover many administrative units (e.g. communes or municipalities) Thus many different governance actors are related to PULs,
Various environmental conflicts arise in PULs, e.g., agricultural vs. recreational land use or human - wildlife conflictswhich could be provoked due to the expansion of urban areas into wildlife habitats. All this affects the well-being of peri-urban citizens and performance of local ecosystems. PULs are therefore a type of dynamically changing landscapes, which requires more consideration in governance processes.
Aims

Together with the participants and as starting point for the joint applications and publication INLAND aims to address the following questions: (1) how to define and delimitate the PULs? (2) Who are the governance actors in PULs and how to get them addressed and involved? (3) What are the existing environmental governance approaches for the sustainable development of PULs? (4) Which kinds of socio-cultural factors influence the success or failure of the environmental governance approaches for PULs?
Research project applications will be prepared during phase 2 of INLAND project. This phase is estimated to be implemented from the mid year 2020 up to at the Spring of year 2021 and will cover the end of Horizon 2020 programme.

Exemplary indicative topics for year 2020 from Horizon 2020 "Climate actions, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials program, which could be potentially interesting for INLAND, are: (1) LC-CLA-10-2020: Achieving long-term climate goals and sustainable development (deepdecarbonisation pathways and sustainable development at national and global level; the role of lifestyle change and consumption patterns on climate change mitigation); (2) LC-CLA-11-2020: Innovative nature-based solutions for carbon neutral cities and improved air quality.
The other relevant topics from "Innovating cities for sustainability and resilience are supposed to be open for year 2020, e.g.: SC5-27-2020: Strengthening EU- China cooperation on sustainable urbanization: enhanced natural treatment solutions for water security and ecological quality of water in cities.

So far, two research proposals were jointly developed:

1. LC-CLA-11-2020: Innovative nature-based solutions for carbon neutral cities and improved air quality (submitted).
2. MARIE-SLODOWSKA CURIE ACTION (MSCA) - Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) (submission in Sept. 2020).