Challenges

CLEARING HOUSE addresses four global mega-challenges that are closely interconnected:

Rapid urbanisation
Environmental degradation
Sustainable urban development
Climate change

Rapid urban growth combined with economic and industrial development may lead to unfavourable conditions that negatively affect human wellbeing. These impacts are amplified in cities that are affected by specific socio-economic and demographic challenges, for instance ageing populations, immigration, and social and economic segregation.

A global challenge

 

Our project unites European and Chinese cities in their quest to develop more resilient cities and liveable societies: finding pathways for the effective restoration of degraded urban environments in order to improve human wellbeing.

Our focus is on tree-based green infrastructure, including peri-urban forests and forested parks, and trees in public and private spaces. Tree-based green infrastructure is the basis for “urban forests as nature-based solutions” (similar Davies et al. 2017), henceforth referred to as UF-NBS.

Although trees are an answer to diverging urban challenges, there are also challenges related to the use of trees, woodlands and forest in urban environments. CLEARING HOUSE will look into challenges relating to:

Planning urban greenspace, planting and managing trees and woodlands in an urban environment
Decision-making and governance of trees and forests in the urban and peri-urban sphere
Designing effective urban forests