The Urban Nature Atlas, created as part of the NATURVATION project, is the most comprehensive database of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for cities created to date. The Urban Nature Atlas has been produced as the result of a systematic survey of NBS interventions in 100 European cities and provides the basis for the analysis of socio-economic and innovation patterns associated with urban NBS in Europe.

NATURVATION sought to collect evidence on 1000 NBS interventions from 100 European cities. The 100 cities selected include 94 cities from the Urban Audit and 6 partner cities of the project (Barcelona, Győr, Leipzig, Newcastle, Malmö, and Utrecht). It was developed between January and August 2017 by colleagues from the Central European University and the Ecological Institute, with support from Durham University.

The development process involved the creation of a web-based questionnaire, the development of data collection guidelines, the training of the data collectors from the Master’s Programmes of Central European University, Lund University and Utrecht University, collection of the cases and the quality control of the submitted data. The analysis of the identified NBS interventions was based on secondary sources.

As a result of the initial data collection, in total 997 questionnaires have been submitted and 976 processed for further analysis. In line with the overall objectives of NATURVATION, the database will serve both research, public policy support and outreach purposes. Upon request, the database may also be made accessible in part or in full to other researchers working on related projects. Download our report providing an overview of the Urban Nature Atlas and an analysis of its content.