The WHO Regional Office for Europe that focuses on urban planning and thus may be of interest to ISOCARP members. One of our projects addresses the relevance of urban green space for health and wellbeing and aims at exploring the impacts of green space interventions in urban settings – i.e. what are the environmental impacts, the health benefits and the equity implications of intervening in and modifying quantity and quality of local green space? The project includes a review of evidence on intervention studies in this area, but also aims to compile the local experience of cities and spatial planners. To collect the experiences and lessons learned, we have developed a template for local authorities and urban planners to submit case studies.

The WHO Regional Office for Europe is carrying out a project on green space interventions and their environmental, health and equity effects. As such interventions are usually carried out on local level and by municipal or local actors, WHO plans to collect case studies on local green space interventions to learn about the green space actions that are implemented on local scale, and what their effects are on environment, health and equity.

WHO therefore encourages the submission of case studies that match the following criteria:

  • the intervention is based on urban green space changes (creating new green space, changing or improving green space characteristics and functions, or removing green space) in all publicly accessible areas – this includes school yards, private parks and similar settings if they are open to the public during afternoons and weekends;
  • the intervention does not just represent standard maintenance of green spaces but significantly modifies green space characteristics;
  • the intervention has been implemented and finalized before 2015 so that reliable information on the impacts of the intervention can be compiled;
  • data are available on at least one of the following intervention impacts: environmental effects, impacts on physical activity / lifestyle, health and wellbeing effects or equity-related impacts;
  • the intervention has been carried out in countries belonging to the WHO European region.

Filling in the case study template takes around 15-20 minutes and is done through a web-based survey tool; the template can be accessed by ISOCARP members at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6F9SSLF

The case study template will be active until mid-June.

Matthias Braubach
Technical Officer Housing / Urban Planning
WHO European Centre for Environment and Health, Bonn office