A guide to Ecological Corridors for Urban Rewilding

          Welcome to green urban planning guided by the Environmental Roundtable's initiative. Enacted through transformative legislation, the concept of the 'green and blue framework' (GBF) from 2009 is reinforcing environmental policy, demanding a scientific approach to preserve biodiversity and shape sustainable cities. Let’s delve into the strategies for mapping and designing these vital ecological corridors.

Ecological Corridors for Urban Sustainability

Why is it Urgent to Create
Ecological Corridors within Urban Areas?

          Numerous studies have demonstrated that the disappearance of biodiversity is directly linked to the fragmentation of natural spaces. Therefore, conserving biodiversity in cities relies on maintaining ecological niches and establishing interconnected green networks. These biological corridors must facilitate the free movement of animal species to ensure their food needs, reproduction, and growth. It is becoming increasingly apparent that after posing a threat to biodiversity, urbanization could now become the crucible for ecological renewal. However, planning connected green spaces in urban environments must strengthen biodiversity by being functionally designed. These ecological corridors must also benefit human populations.

The Positive Effects of Urban Rewilding

          It is now widely acknowledged that reintroducing biodiversity into urban environments will play a crucial role in preserving the future of the planet. Beyond the initial goal of conserving flora and fauna, urban greening also has positive impacts on human well-being:

• It enhances the quality of life for city dwellers and has a positive impact on health.

• It contributes to improving the aesthetics of cities.

• It strengthens the attractiveness of a living environment with positive consequences for the economic fabric.

In recent years, public authorities have made rewilding a priority in urban policy. Emerging from initiatives like the Environmental Roundtable, new regulatory standards now aim to limit soil artificialization and reintroduce nature into cities. This paradigm shift is now at the forefront of concerns for many local authorities responsible for territorial planning.

Ecological Corridors in Urban Areas
to Homogenize City and Nature

          Following this principle, it is now necessary to establish a true continuum of ecological corridors between rural and urban areas. Moreover, while the implementation of such a strategy aims to curb biodiversity loss, it also responds to an increasing demand from urban populations aspiring to experience nature within the city. However, creating ecological corridors in urban areas presents a real challenge for a municipality or an intermunicipal authority. This involves, among other things, adapting their local urban planning (LUP or LUPI) to the requirements of better biodiversity conservation.

How to Integrate Ecological Continuity
in Urban Areas?

          Harmonizing a coherent urban planning and preserving ecological continuity aims to adapt the city to a new mode of connecting natural spaces. This type of project aims to facilitate ecosystem functioning in the city and enable better species movement to preserve biodiversity. It requires a long study phase that involves inventorying numerous parameters:

• Establishing a comprehensive tree inventory.

• Creating a map of the green framework, putting it into perspective with natural continuums on the outskirts of urban areas.

• Developing a spatial database of species (flora, fauna).

• Elaborating an action plan to integrate the green framework into local urban planning.

The creation of ecological corridors cannot be envisioned without a good understanding of natural environments to maintain all their functionalities and ecosystem services. All collected data must then be aggregated to define an optimized ecological continuity model. This optimization aims to reconcile biodiversity preservation and the living environment of human populations.

How to Design Ecological Corridors
in Urban Environments?

The landscape graph method proves to be a relevant solution today for developing green network planning within cities. This modeling technique enables the development of strategies to mitigate fragmentation in urban areas and create conditions for functional connectivity of green spaces. But this preliminary work involves a significant phase of data collection and compilation. Initially, it is essential to comprehensively inventory animal and plant species to build a knowledge base. An innovative technological solution applied to biodiversity, such as Ecoteka, aims to enable a better understanding of natural environment functioning and ultimately, biodiversity sustainability.

Ecoteka: Preserve and Restore
Your Green, Blue, and Brown frameworks?

Ecoteka has been designed as a true "Swiss Army knife" capable of providing a synthesis map of urban ecosystems. With this open-source platform, we aim to go beyond a traditional geographic information system (GIS) by developing a solution for managing urban vegetation and decision support on the best options to take when creating ecological corridors.

Design a greener city and join the urban rewilding movement!