Project: Nature’s Integration in Cities’ Hydrologies, Ecologies and Societies

Acronym	NICHES (Reference Number: BiodivRestore-557)
Duration	01/04/2022 - 31/03/2025
Project Topic	Combined sewer overflows (CSO) in cities are one of the major pollution sources for aquatic ecosystems and threats to freshwater and marine biodiversity in Europe and beyond. While sewage system renewals require large and long-term infrastructure investments, restorative nature-based solutions (NBS) in cities represent a promising approach to mitigate stormwater runoff in a cost-effective way while producing multiple co-benefits for city dwellers. As such, NICHES (Nature's Integration in Cities’ Hydrologies, Ecologies and Societies) applies a social-ecological-technical systems (SETS; McPhearson et al., 2021) approach to develop a holistic understanding of the ecological, social and economic needs for and benefits of runoff mitigation using NBS. Focusing on five cities characterised by different challenges and experiences (Barcelona, Berlin, Boston, Sheffield, and Rotterdam), NICHES addresses four objectives: (1) examine ecological, social and economic impacts from CSO on aquatic ecosystems; (2) develop and run restorative urban NBS to estimate runoff mitigation potentials and their co-benefits; (3) develop integrated assessment frameworks and transition pathways that support the integration of restorative NBS within existing urban policy frameworks; and (4) effectively consider trade-offs between people’s needs across different parts of the urban SETS system, including the location of NBS implementation and the areas around water bodies receiving CSO. To do so, NICHES will examine the biological and biophysical processes critical to avoiding negative impacts on aquatic ecosystems, and model the hydrological and ecological functions of NBS that improve urban runoff and pollution retention capacities under different scenarios to support an increased predictive understanding of biodiversity impacts. NICHES will further address the social, institutional and governance systems in the cities and acknowledge trade-offs and synergies between targeted benefits and policies for nature conservation and restoration across the entire SETS in order to foster the co-design of sustainable urban transitions and inclusive decision-making processes. The new knowledge generated through NICHES will improve the effectiveness and upscaling of NBS for (aquatic) conservation and restoration, both for impact areas as well as for the urban implementation areas in the project cities and beyond. In short, NICHES aims at providing a holistic understanding of ecological, social and economic impacts of (avoided) CSO to increase the evidence base around restorative NBS impacts and potentials. NICHES will identify policy and governance transition opportunities and foster the co-creation of NBS approaches involving decision-makers and society. Moreover, the project will contribute to the implementation of the ambitious restoration targets of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, which is key to stopping the ongoing decline of Europe’s biodiversity.
Website	visit project website
Network	BiodivRestore
Call	BiodivRestore Transnational Cofund Call 2020-2021

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Ecologic Institute	Coordinator	Germany
2	Pensoft Publishers	Partner	Bulgaria
3	Netherlands Institute of Ecology	Partner	Netherlands
4	Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona	Partner	Spain
5	University of Sheffield	Partner	United Kingdom
6	Northeastern University	Partner	United States