Urban ReLeaf aims to co-create citizen-powered data ecosystems to support climate change adaptation, green infrastructure, and urban design planning. The project identifies critical information gaps and barriers to urban greening efforts and delivers a series of civic engagement and monitoring campaigns to overcome these gaps. In addition, it offers protocols for the uptake, validation, and long-term inclusion of citizen-powered data into official data streams. Urban ReLeaf tackles local issues of public interest and progresses beyond awareness raising to mainstreaming citizen observations for data-driven decision making and political agenda setting. At the heart of Urban ReLeaf are six pilot cities addressing different urban challenges. Athens is undergoing a greening transformation with a new tree registry the combines Earth Observation and crowdsourcing methods to provide critical data for better management of greenspaces. Cascais engages citizens in sharing perceptions and thermal comfort levels while using greenspaces to validate the effectiveness of its parks. Meanwhile in Dundee, a city facing increasing grey infrastructure in deprived areas, actions to enhance the accessibility of greenspaces are co-developed with citizens and stakeholders. Mannheim has a heat action plan to safeguard its most vulnerable residents but has identified critical data gaps. Citizen observations of trees and thermal comfort, when integrated with Earth Observation and official data streams, will aid the delivery of climate adaptation measures. Riga engages diverse audiences to address concerns about air quality and greenspace usage, using low-cost sensor networks. Finally, in Utrecht, data on temperature, humidity and heat stress, collected by and for citizens, will help them reduce the urban heat island effect and shape effective mitigation strategies. This deliverable presents the action plans for the initial phase of the Urban ReLeaf pilots. It outlines the specific strategies and methodologies to be employed in six cities - Cascais, Dundee, Mannheim, Riga, Utrecht and Athens - to address their unique urban challenges through citizen engagement and data collection.
Moorthy et al. (Sun,) studied this question.