NATURELAB - Study of indicators to assess nature spaces potential to support communities’ resilience and sustainability

Abstract

NATURELAB – Nature-Based Interventions for Improving Health and Well-Being is an European funded project coordinated by LNEC, aiming to enhance the benefits of nature spaces for health and well-being. It is structured around six working packages, with activities implemented at 15 Experimental Sites (ES) across Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands, Germany, and Peru. Besides the coordination, LNEC coleads WP1, which focuses on assessing nature spaces potential to contribute to healthy and resilient communities. Indicators being developed to assess this potential include environmental, infrastructure, and cultural ecosystem services. Specifically, the indicators related to the sustainability and resilience of sites and their populations are divided into four main areas: (i) Exterior daylight and solar radiation; (ii) Environmental sound; (iii) Air quality and (iv) Sustainable and climate resilient water management. The project focuses on assessing and comparing three distinct types of nature spaces, (i) Forests and protected areas; (ii) Urban parks and healing gardens and (iii) Horticulture and gardening spaces. The six experimental sites located in Portuguese encompass all three types. This document provides a comprehensive overview of the progress and challenges in monitoring key environmental variables. The report is organised into sections dealing with the four themes that under WP1 have direct contributions from LNEC, namely: i) Assessment of Exterior daylight and solar radiation; ii) Characterisation of the environmental sound; iii) Air quality characterisation and iv) Sustainable and climate resilient water management. A preliminary review of the state-of-the-art is included, alongside with initial results from field monitoring. The report content responds to its objectives, allowing a clearer perception of the status and challenges of the work at the NATURELAB experimental sites in Portugal, particularly in monitoring more complex variables such as daylight and solar radiation, environmental sound and air quality. Air quality monitoring results confirm that no significant pollution issues hinder the potential of the six experimental sites to promote health and well-being. NATURELAB’s indicators for sustainable and climate-resilient water management are expected to be effectively applied across the Portuguese sites and beyond. On the other hand, it is clear that the evaluation of daylight and solar radiation, as well as the assessment of environmental sound are challenging and require fine tuning monitoring methodologies and approaches, which will be done in the ongoing and future steps.