Environmental problems in Latin American urban green spaces and solutions based on the intelligence of the planet.
In the city of Buenos Aires, as in many other cities in Latin America, the environmental management of green spaces faces recurring problems related to soil management, water regulation and efficient use, temperature regulation, waste management, and the balance of biodiverse habitats, among others. All these pieces make up a big puzzle – one that we must begin to identify and piece together.
The main trigger of these problems is the lack of adequate articulation between administrative jurisdictions, i.e., governance.
On the other hand, we are well aware that the strategies and tools for action are specific to each city and country according to its context, therefore, we understand the importance of not extrapolating measures as globalized recipes. Economic and cultural differences make, in most cases, the application of standard measures unfeasible.
What can we do? The Fronda team is already getting to work using IAIA Innovation Grant funds. Our objective is to propose criteria for the selection of Nature-based measures in order to develop management plans for urban green spaces in Latin America. We believe that these criteria will be useful to better identify measures that promote climate resilience through the preservation and promotion of ecosystem services provided by these spaces.
So far, in the different spaces surveyed (different scales and age), we found some interesting points to observe. One example is associated with recreational, cultural and spiritual benefits where we were able to confirm a high density of use and an intense overlapping of activities of different nature (sports and recreation) depending on the time of day. We also confirmed that spaces that have surface water bodies (lagoons, reservoirs, wetlands) with respect to those that do not, i.e., blue-green infrastructure, have comparative advantages with respect to those that have only green and gray infrastructure. The presence of water bodies generates greater diversity of services, which is associated with greater population welfare.
There is still a lot of work ahead, but we are excited to start processing the data collected with the aim of providing criteria and indicators to help decide which nature-based solutions are the most appropriate for each situation.
