CUE Topic 2: Innovative maintenance of urban green and blue spaces

Urban green, blue, and blue-green spaces, such as parks, gardens, street trees, rivers, ponds, and wetlands, are vital components of city ecosystems. They provide critical services including biodiversity habitat, stormwater management, urban cooling, and recreational and social value. However, the long-term maintenance of these spaces is often undervalued or under-resourced, leading to degraded ecological health and diminished benefits. Conventional maintenance regimes that prioritize neatness or minimal cost can inadvertently harm biodiversity (e.g. over-mowing or removing natural debris) and limit the climate resilience potential of urban nature elements. With climate change intensifying and biodiversity in decline, cities urgently need to reimagine maintenance as a proactive strategy for adaptation and ecological health. European policy developments underscore this urgency: the new EU Nature Restoration Law aims to halt net loss of urban green spaces by 2030 and increase urban nature area in following decades, and it mandates restoring urban ecosystems and ensuring access to quality green space for all residents. This calls for innovative, systemic approaches to maintenance, not just technical fixes, but new governance, financing, and collaborative models, to enhance the biodiversity, climate adaptation capacity, and social value of urban green and blue assets.

Project proposals submitted under this topic should address one or several of the following questions:

• How can routine maintenance practices (such as mowing, pruning, and waterway management) be transformed to boost urban biodiversity and ecological health while preserving functionality and safety in green and blue spaces?
• How can maintenance strategies for urban nature contribute to climate adaptation, for example, by managing vegetation and water in ways that reduce heat, drought and flood risks, and what innovations are needed to adapt upkeep regimes under changing climate conditions?
• What governance models and cross-sector collaborations (e.g. across municipal departments, community groups, and private stakeholders) can ensure the sustainable long-term stewardship of urban green and blue spaces, overcoming silos and engaging new actors in maintenance?
• What innovative financing mechanisms or business models can be developed to fund the ongoing care of parks, waterways and other urban natural areas (for instance, dedicated green maintenance funds, public-private partnerships, or payments for ecosystem services)?
• How can maintenance practices maximize the social value of urban nature, ensuring that green/blue spaces are accessible, safe, and inclusive for all communities, while also enhancing ecological outcomes?
• What are citizens’ needs in terms of urban nature? And how can citizens by actively involved in the maintenance of urban green and blue spaces?

Rather than focusing on isolated technical solutions, projects are expected to address this topic in a systemic way. Project outputs should be impact-oriented and process-oriented, and therefore as concrete and user-centred as possible. Expected outputs include, but are not limited to:

• Guidelines or toolkits for biodiversity-friendly and climate-resilient maintenance regimes in various types of urban green, blue and blue-green spaces.
• Governance frameworks or partnership models (e.g. community stewardship agreements, inter-departmental coordination mechanisms) for co-managing and maintaining urban natural spaces over time.
• Innovative financing strategies (such as dedicated urban nature funds, new municipal budget tools or revenue schemes from circular reuse of green waste) to support the long-term upkeep of urban green infrastructure.
• Decision-support tools or methods for planning maintenance activities that optimise ecological and climate adaptation outcomes (for example, dynamic maintenance scheduling informed by weather and biodiversity data).
• Policy recommendations for integrating maintenance considerations into urban development and nature restoration plans – ensuring that creation of new green/blue spaces is paired with sustainable maintenance strategies aligned with EU biodiversity and climate goals.