Combining nature based design and ecosystem services within urban development planning

Abstract

Rapid urbanisation in cities like Eindhoven have caused the nature around the river Dommel to become less present. The coming years the cities plans to reintroduce more nature back into the city in one of the neighbourhoods called KnoopXL. The plans that are currently being drawn up are made from a human centric vision, that incorporates little actual nature. That’s why in this report we will show how a combined effort of more than human and Ecological design approaches can influence urban redevelopment by showing that NBD interventions can increase ecosystem services. These ecosystem services like water quality, local water storage and biodiversity can be improved drastically within urban environments when Nature Based Solutions based on the local ecology are implemented. The focus points of these interventions should be on the most densely build areas within the city of Eindhoven to get the greatest increase in ecosystem services and therefor the urban nature that is important for both the health of humans and non-humans. Overall this report shows that an framework combining art as a medium to challenge the views of stakeholders, can be combined with elements from scientific fields like Ecosystem services to provide a starting point for future redevelopment projects of urban landscapes.