In Klockardalsparken, a few kilometers outside Skellefteå city center, Skellefteå municipality, through the Varcities project, has worked with five different nature-based solutions to improve health and well-being in the city.
The project, funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 program, has six other pilot sites in Europe working on similar interventions. Skellefteå municipality took this on for several reasons. One important reason is that thanks to the interventions, the park acts as a brake on rainwater flows from Vitberget, as the park can now handle more water and part of the surface is also designed to flood from time to time. This area, now a wetland meadow, also enhances biodiversity.
As the park was already a popular destination for nearby schools, Skellefteå Municipality also chose to strengthen the site as an educational environment, with a permanent outdoor classroom and with information and educational materials. This gives the children the opportunity to work directly in nature, and then the wetland meadow also becomes an asset with its species richness. The accessibility of the area has been improved and, thanks to energy-efficient and inspiring lighting, the site is usable all year round.
In Klockardalsparken, nature-based solutions have reduced the risk of flooding downstream of the stream, while enhancing the biodiversity of the area and inviting activities that strengthen public health. But, perhaps more importantly, the site has become a good learning environment for children and young people, through the outdoor classroom, so they can better learn about issues important to the municipality's local climate transition.
- We can already see that the number of species has increased, and that the park surface can slow down water flows better than before. The outdoor classroom is also popular, and especially appreciated by Lejonströmsskolan, which has classes for adapted primary school, says Gustaf Ulander, Skellefteå municipality.
The most prominent nature-based solutions are local stormwater/rainwater management (slowing down flows, allowing infiltration), a wetland meadow surface (i.e. a surface that can withstand flooding) and the outdoor classroom. The solutions have been developed in an EU project in which Skellefteå has participated, together with six other pilot cities and fifteen partners.
- The project has supported us in various ways, especially with structured ways of citizen participation - what the project calls co-creation, co-design and co-evaluation. In short, methods to give residents a stake in the whole process," says Gustaf Ulander.
The initiative for the project came from the municipal management office, in a collaboration between the Land and Development Unit and the International Unit. In the implementation, the two have worked together with the Public Works Department (Water and Parks) and also with the Culture and Leisure Department. All of these have contributed different elements in their areas of expertise. The International Unit has supported with project formalities, project management and financial control.
- This has been a partly new way of working. The process of citizen participation, with more controlled workshops, invitations and target groups is partly new. It has also been new to allow external parties within the project to participate in and influence some processes in the park project itself, and it is also not so common for three different administrations to be involved in this way, says Gustaf Ulander.
During the project, a number of challenges were encountered, such as a challenge with the building contractor to build the classroom within budget, which was solved with the support of the municipality's procurement unit.
- "We would also have liked to use more or other sensors to measure the number of visitors to the park, but we ran into problems with GDPR. We had to choose an inferior solution to meet the requirements, which means that we have poorer statistics on the number of visitors," says Gustaf Ulander.
- One thing the project is working on during the evaluation phase is the term 'Social Return on Investment', a kind of metric for measuring the social benefits of investments. It might be a way to justify building more outdoor classrooms," says Gustaf Ulander.
They currently see that the maintenance of the green space is more expensive than regular park space, but Gustaf believes that it is largely because the municipality has few places with that type of wetland meadow. If more similar places were to be created, it would be more efficient, both in terms of costs and maintenance.
Nature-based solutions and rainwater management systems are already being considered in more locations. However, it is more challenging to create equally good outdoor classrooms in other locations, without external funding, says Gustaf Ulander.
- This can be done in two ways. When it comes to the nature-based solutions themselves, the advice is to take advice from experts and work based on the site conditions. Try to find "double benefits", such as the wetland meadow both slowing down water flows and enhancing biodiversity. The second advice is more linked to EU funding - dare to be active and present your challenges when you get the chance. "This all started for us back in 2010 when we pitched a stormwater challenge at an event in Brussels," says Gustaf Ulander.
As the mining and minerals company Boliden celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2024, it has invested in a park area in the town of Boliden, where the Sidtjärn area is being developed to create a place and opportunities for more activities, more meeting places and higher biodiversity - including through a school forest.
Gustaf Ulander, process manager for Climate Neutral Skellefteå 2030, gustaf.ulander@skelleftea.se, 070-238 46 40
