Eco Innovation in Belarus – Urban digitalization for breathable cities

Urban digitalization can accelerate our progress towards cities with cleaner air, creating a more eco-friendly environment in Belarus. Urban green spaces’ natural ability to filter air pollution and reduce local air and ground temperatures can provide significant health benefits for the city’s residents and community. So how to merge digitalization and sustainability to tackle air pollution, which has now become one of the greatest global threats to our health and wellbeing? [1]

The air pollution challenge in cities

Exposure to high levels of air pollutants has a variety of adverse health effects – such as an increased risk of respiratory infections, heart disease, and COVID-19 death. Globally, air pollution causes seven million deaths every year – equal to the population of Bulgaria – and its damaging impact can cut short the lives of billions of people by up to six years. In Belarus, for example, the mortality rate attributed to ambient air pollution was 104.4 (per 100,000 population) in 2016, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). With 91% of the world’s population living in areas where air quality is below WHO-recommended limits, we need an urgent and systemic solution to air pollution.

The air pollution challenge is particularly acute in urban areas. Recognizing the important role of cities in global development, SDG 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) seeks to make cities and towns inclusive, safe and sustainable. Thus, the greening of urban areas can be a perfect nature-based solution for improving cities’ quality of life and health. Urban green infrastructure can play a significant role in balancing the urban microclimate – for example, parks and alleys have an effect on temperature and humidity; they ionize and humidify the air, provide horizontal and vertical ventilation, reduce dust and pollutants and help reduce noise pollution.

The changing approach in Novahrudak, Belarus

A recent survey [2] conducted by UNDP Belarus among the residents of Novahrudak, a town in the Hrodna region of Belarus, showed that 82.6% of the townspeople were concerned about local environmental issues. But while the lack of urban green areas was among the top five identified environmental challenges, only 5% of those surveyed were involved in one way or another in the maintenance of green areas in the town. 

This can be explained by the traditional approach to managing green areas (inventory and assessment), which is organized once every five years. Comprehensive information about the status of green areas in Belarus is usually available only to specialists working directly on the topic, which can result in institutional memory loss and lack of strategic planning. 

Revitalizing and opening up the approach to the management of green areas and urban greening practices can bring this area of urban development to a new level, thereby meeting the contemporary needs of a systemic approach to urban planning and evidence-based policy-making. For example, using the urban digital twin approach [3] can help local municipal authorities embrace new ways of how cities are planned, operated, monitored and managed, to promote ecosystem services, with a renewed focus on green areas, and improve air quality.

Digitalization x urban green areas

The UNDP Acceleration Lab in Belarus is currently exploring the wider application of digital technologies – such as a tree inventory platform, a digital green city map, and a tree planting mobile application, among others – to expand and improve urban green areas. Harnessing urban innovation will help local governments to better integrate greening agendas in urban planning and development strategies and promote active citizen participation in maintaining green spaces.

In partnership with Belarus’ Ministry of Communication and Informatization, the city authorities, tech community and eco-activists, the Acceleration Lab piloted a portfolio of digital solutions, which can be applied in small and medium-sized cities all across Belarus, starting with Novahrudak.

The tree inventory

One of the solutions in the portfolio is a digital platform for tree inventories, which will help train environmentalists and volunteers to collect data to create an interactive map of green areas. The map will then be periodically updated and publicly available to citizens and city administrations to monitor developments online, and plan and participate in the management and improvement of green areas.

For this map to be effective, residents’ expectations and preferences regarding urban green spaces need to be clearly understood. Therefore, the Accelerator Lab will also develop an online platform that will collect ideas and proposals on urban greening from local residents, plotting them on a digital city map. 

Furthermore, to ensure that the greening process corresponds to the city’s management and development strategies, the Acceleration Lab will pilot an existing responsive web-service, designed to make it easier for residents to get permission to plant trees. This digital tool will help people to quickly and correctly file for permission to plant trees within the town’s limits, as well as to receive information about sustainable suppliers of seedlings and gardening tools. Municipalities, on the other hand, will have at their disposal an effective digital toolkit enabling them to make informed, data-based, strategic decisions on improving the urban environment, taking into account the challenges posed by climate change, air pollution and pandemic risks, such as COVID-19. 

Multi-Stakeholder involvement in urban greening strategies

The UNDP Acceleration Lab does not focus only on piloting these solutions. Rather, the main objective is to develop a systematic approach to urban greening to minimize air pollution and improve the quality of life in Belarus’ cities. By uniting the efforts of various players such as experts, municipal authorities and citizens, we aim to:

• clearly define the most effective solutions;
• study those aspects of the selected pilot projects that work effectively and those that can be corrected and improved;
• assess the local context of Belarus’ urban development;
• analyse the degree of interest and engagement of residents and the accessibility of information on greening issues.

The Lab’s work in this area shows the importance of employing an integrated approach to urban greening strategies – whereby nature-based solutions are supported by digital transformation – and engaging different stakeholders in the process for more systematic, sustainable and effective outcomes. It is in this framework that cities from areas of high environmental risk can become centres of green recovery, where the well-being of nature and human health go hand in hand. 

——————————-

[1] https://www.eurasia.undp.org/content/rbec/en/home/library/environment_energy/tackling-air-pollution-in-europe-and-central-asia.html
[2] The study was carried out by UNDP Belarus Acceleration Laboratory for sustainable development, in partnership with the UNDP-Global Environment Facility “Green Cities” project.
[3] Urban digital twins are a virtual representation of a city’s physical assets, using data, data analytics and machine learning to help stimulation models that can be updated and changed (real-time) as their physical equivalents change.