Murcia Lab will work as co-creation space, supporting citizen science and crowdmapping of climate change impacts, tailoring policy solutions aimed at improving urban performance. The labs will strengthen the horizontal connection between all the institutional bodies that are involved in the improvement of the urban environment, and the vertical one, between all the urban actors who live and use the city, to be able to develop preparedness models to mitigate the impacts of the identified challenges. This working method proposal will deal with one of the fundamental aspects of contemporary urban management: the production of data through the citizen's involvement that is useful for the development of management and simulation models (city digital twin model).
Key Features
Murcia is the capital of the Region of Murcia in Spain. Located in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, Murcia is the centre of economic and social activity in the region.
It has a very dispersed population due to the large extension of its municipal area, resulting in a high traffic of people who daily commute to the city.
The economy of Murcia has historically been closely linked to the agricultural sector, thanks to its fertile and extensive orchard, for which it was known as "La Huerta de Europa". Very notable have also been the food, textile or chemical industries, among others.
However, the tertiary sector, which has progressively left this type of more traditional activity in the background, has now made Murcia a benchmark in the provision of all kinds of services.
Main Challenges
This pilot will operate within the climate change, zero pollution, and biodiversity priority actions of the European Green Deal. Within this framework, Murcia will focus on the following challenges:
- Reduce heat island impacts. How to improve the liveability of public spaces within the urban fabric of the consolidated city, where heavy modification actions are often not possible. In this case, thinking of nature-based solutions that can increase the biodiversity in urban landscapes.
- Reduce flash rainfalls and flooding impacts. Rainfall is increasingly intense and spread over time. The structure of the city is therefore faced with the issue of managing large quantities of water in a short time without the streets, and open spaces often created with non-draining surfaces, transforming into urban rivers causing damage to the buildings and infrastructures in highly populated urban areas.
- Increase the compactness of the city. Promote the development of actions aimed at making the consolidated urban fabric more compact, i.e., able of responding to the daily needs of residents by encouraging displacements in sustainable ways, other than the use of private cars. These actions are part of the development of the concept of the city thinking through models of “chrono-urbanism” in which different services are accessible in a reasonable time without using a car.
Highlights
This pilot project underscores the pivotal role of urban dynamics in fostering resilient societies through interdisciplinary strategies and fresh policy perspectives. By integrating concepts of urban design with active citizen involvement, the project introduces a unique focus. Methodologically, it draws from the adaptation of Spanish Urban Agenda, establishing a framework to identify resilience-building actions for cities and territories. Participatory techniques involve citizen use of digital tools and urban exploration to map and comprehend climate-related issues such as heatwaves and floods. Subsequently, scenario development and policy testing will be employed to develop future-adapted resilience policy strategies. The project articulates with ongoing initiatives like Climathons, where diverse stakeholders collaborate on designing solutions to specific climate challenges within a single day.