UNderstanding and enabling the transition towards reverting soil SEALing for improving urban biodiversity and nature-based solutions
PROJECT SUMMARY
UNSEAL investigates how cities can reverse soil sealing and reclaim paved, built or underused urban land for biodiversity and green infrastructure. It treats unsealing as a circular approach to urban land use: removing buildings or other impervious surfaces and repurposing the space to support nature-positive urban development.
Across five case-study areas – Leiden, Chalandri in Athens, Bucharest, Zürich and Győr – the project follows unsealing initiatives at different stages, from early exploration and visioning to implementation. It identifies local “brightspots” and the actors and drivers behind them; reviews and quantifies biodiversity and ecosystem-service benefits; examines planning instruments and governance approaches; and tests inclusive participatory methods and digital tools for co-creating new unsealing pathways.
By combining local action research with European-scale geospatial analysis, UNSEAL will deliver transferable methods, practical guidance and evidence to help cities identify opportunities, address equity and implementation challenges, and scale soil unsealing as part of nature-positive urban regeneration.
PHYSI’S ROLE
PHYSI leads Work Package 4, the project’s transdisciplinary participatory action-research and scenario-development work. It designs the inclusive research protocol, prepares local teams and coordinates multi-step co-creation processes across the project’s case-study areas. These processes help municipalities, communities and experts identify unsealing opportunities, explore alternative futures and translate them into actionable priorities, responsibilities and next steps.
PHYSI will tailor and apply the Urban Nature Explorer as a digital twin in all five cities for scenario and co-creation processes, alongside digital engagement and decision making tools from Crowdpolicy. Evidence from the project’s mapping, benefits assessment and planning research will be translated into local scenario environments where stakeholders can identify opportunities, compare indicative costs and impacts, refine pathways and support collaborative action planning. PHYSI also contributes to documenting unsealing brightspots in the Urban Nature Atlas, the creation of a European unsealing conceptual framework, the co-design and potential integration of impact indicators for soil unsealing, and the local citizen-led implementation and engagement activities in the city of Győr, with the support of Reflex Environmental Association.
PARTNERSHIP
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam – Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) – Project Coordinator
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL
- University of Bucharest – CCMESI
- University of the Aegean
- PHYSI
- Crowdpolicy
- Municipality of Leiden
- Asociația InformART
- Reflex Környezetvédő Egyesület
- Plan Biodivers GmbH
- PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
- Municipality of Chalandri
Project website: www.unseal.eu
| Funding programme | Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) Partnership |
| Call topic | CUE topic 2: Circular models for regenerating, repurposing, protecting and conserving urban space for biodiversity |