The municipality and its public utility company (VKSz) responsible for the management of green areas (among others) take sustainability as a key organising principle in general, but climate-adaptive grassland management in urban environments is a flagship project on the national level - and it also has been awarded now as an URBACT Good Practice.
The story started in 2015 when the company was lagging behind the set plans regarding lawing the city's mown due to heavy springtime precipitation. Even though the municipality received many complaints because of the “abandoned” mown, it was an opportunity to rethink the way how they maintain urban grasslands, especially those huge green areas between houses that are simply not used by residents. The city cooperated with the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences and established pilot areas to measure the vegetation growth without lawing it, and it was also a great opportunity to raise awareness and explain that these areas are not neglected, but good for the city because it attracts pollinators and temperate the microclimate.
Today the municipality cultivates ca. 5000 nm2 across the city in this way, having special attention to prefabricated housing estates. The new management method consists of other biodiversity-driven maintenance techniques like leaving leaves in dedicated spots to provide a wintering area for hedgehogs and insects. The success of the initiative is proven by the fact that now residents themselves ask the municipality to establish wildflower meadows in their neighbourhood… And the fact that this approach is among the 116 URBACT Good Practices.
Read the comprehensive case study to understand how this systematic framework works in Veszprém so successfully, and learn about how this policy supports urban biodiversity and climate change adaptation.
The case study was co-created by the Veszprémi Közüzemi Szolgáltató cPlc. (the public utility company) and the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Faculty of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning.
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