[Science News] - For a better integration of urban wastelands

Meise Botanic Garden is participating in the international project called SUNLOOP, which aims to address the challenges posed by biodiversity loss and climate change in urban areas. The project focuses on areas of Spontaneous Urban Nature (SUN) —wastelands, vacant lots, etc.—considered as nature-based solutions within the context of “No Net Land Take” European policies.

Despite their socio-ecological benefits, these areas often remain marginalized in urban planning. The project seeks to improve understanding and awareness of these areas within the urban landscape in order to influence urban planning policies by integrating the socio-ecological value of spontaneous biodiversity.

The project prioritizes an interdisciplinary approach, combining environmental science, citizen science, and urban planning. The scientific team brings together experts from Belgian, Swiss, and French academic institutions, as well as local stakeholders, sharing their perspectives on cities facing specific urban pressures. Three cities were chosen as case studies: Charleroi, Fribourg, and Paris.

In Belgium, the University of Mons, Natagora, and Meise Botanic Garden received funding from the FNRS (National Fund for Scientific Research) to carry out their work. During the summer, flora and fauna inventories were conducted at 12 sites in Charleroi, including the iconic Martinet waste tips, as well as many other areas less well-known to the public and biologists. In total, 125 hectares of spontaneous habitats (brownfields and coal-mining waste tips) were meticulously studied.

The summer inventories conducted by the Botanic Garden team revealed the presence of nearly one-fifth of Belgium's native flora. Among the remarkable species are Anacamptis pyramidalis, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, Dianthus carthusianorum, Helosciadium nodiflorum, Ophrys apifera, Petrorhagia prolifera, and Pyrola minor, which are listed on the Red List of the Flora of Wallonia. These urban wastelands thus constitute essential refuges for a flora that has become rare in the surrounding landscapes. Beyond these endangered species, the several hundred other, less rare, species recorded there also demonstrate that these areas can constitute genuine ecological infrastructures that contribute to urban biodiversity, as well as to climate resilience and urban development.

These inventories, combined with the work of the other teams in this interdisciplinary project, will also help to understand the gap between the perceived biodiversity of an area and the actual biodiversity it harbors, in order to encourage a shift in perspective among local stakeholders. SUNLOOP thus aims to recognize the multiple values of these areas and the importance of preserving them and fully integrating them into urban planning.