City Blues

Growing cities are facing negative effects of climate change, such as biodiversity loss, increased flooding, erosion of the stream banks, and pollution from the stormwater runoff. While the situation has been identified, many cities find it difficult to embark on a path of change.

In City Blues, we created a web-based tool, the “NBS model”, for other cities seeking to become more water-sensitive. It brings together our experiences and best practices on how to use nature-based solutions (NBS) and catchment-based approach for urban flooding and stormwater management. The model guides cities through different stages of the process: from financing and planning to implementation, maintenance, and monitoring, and explains how stakeholders can be involved.

During the three-year project, Aarhus, Malmö, Stavanger, Tampere, and Tartu each worked with a local pilot site. The pilots gave the cities an opportunity to learn which NBS worked in their local conditions, how to involve the right stakeholders, and what aspects to consider in NBS implementation and maintenance.

NBS in stormwater management are increasingly important in the future, and they bring other benefits for nature, too. We want to make the use of NBS and watershed-based thinking mainstream.