Urbloom

Context

Given the global decline in pollinators over the past two decades, recent studies indicate that urban green spaces could serve as refuges for pollinators. These green spaces are subject to increasingly frequent and intense droughts, which reduce water availability and limit the provision of floral resources for pollinators. In European cities, the ornamental varieties offered in catalogues are often similar across cities, even though climatic conditions differ, and tend to prioritise aesthetics over biodiversity benefits. There is therefore an urgent need to rethink urban flowerbeds, involving stakeholders ranging from horticulturists to managers. By exploring creative flowerbeds developed jointly by scientists and local stakeholders that balance drought resistance, pollinator attraction, and social acceptance, this project aims to redefine flowerbed management to support sustainable biodiversity conservation.

Main objectives

Our project aims to develop sustainable future flowerbed species assemblages and compare them to traditional assemblages in nine European cities. Specifically, we will explore:

• What quantitative floral traits do future flowerbeds exhibit compared to traditional ones?
• How attractive are future flowerbeds to pollinators?
• What impact does drought have on these flowerbeds?
• What changes in practices can be collectively agreed upon by all stakeholders?
• How can we evaluate future flowerbeds using a multi-criteria assessment approach?

Main activities

• We adopt an interdisciplinary approach that combines natural and social sciences to produce actionable knowledge aimed at informing public policies and fostering transformative change.
• Flowerbed compositions are selected according to bioclimatic regions, local stakeholder input, and plant attractiveness to pollinators.
• Floral traits and their responses to drought are measured using standardised protocols to ensure comparability across cities.
• We develop a novel, non-lethal tool to recognise and classify different groups of pollinators, while actively engaging a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., urban green space managers and users, volunteer citizens, and school groups) in pollinator identification.
• We assess the perceptions of urban green space managers, planners, and users regarding future flowerbeds, including their design, implementation, and maintenance, using social science methods.
• We conduct data analysis and multi-criteria evaluation to assess the ecological, social, and functional performance of future flowerbeds.