Bistrita
B-CONNECT - Bio-Centric Communities: Navigating Nature, Embracing Ecosystems, Championing Technology
B-CONNECT is driven by an urgent need to address environmental issues and equip Bistrița with suitable tools for greening the city. The project takes a hybrid approach, intertwining:
- People-places connections: facilitated by a real-time monitoring and response platform
- People-nature connections: addressing challenges like biodiversity loss and Green Infrastructure management through innovative approaches, such as mobile hydroponic towers and affordable nature-based solutions, for cleaner air and revitalised urban spaces.
- People-people connections: empowering actors and local communities including in peripheral areas of the city with tools, knowledge and infrastructures in an adaptive urban resilience framework
Our main challenges...
Air quality challenges, due to: heavy traffic including in the city centre, which lacks green infrastructure (439 cars/1000 people); and industrial activities, particularly those generating heavy metals emissions, e.g. battery and brick manufacturing.
Under-developed green infrastructure, with ‘unresilient’ vegetation that is heavily affected by intense summer heat and unable to improve the thermal comfort and environmental conditions of key areas of the city.
A lack of properly monitored urban climate, air quality and traffic data, and little measurement of the synergetic impact of city investments. Strengthening data-driven decision-making is one of the key challenges of B- CONNECT.
and proposed solutions
People-places connections: a real-time monitoring and response platform integrates hard data (environmental quality, urban climate, pollution, traffic) with citizen-driven perception data, linked to a citizen app and LED panels in public spaces.
People-nature connections: actions to boost biodiversity, GI and urban landscape regeneration through integrated adaptive-NBS management— including using mobile hydroponic towers, recovering land, and creating NBS-based multifunctional public spaces.
People-people connections: involving citizens and ensuring ownership throughout the project, from technology to place-making, while creating frameworks for long-term sustainability. This includes harnessing young talents via ‘Eco-Guilds’ creative hub.
Key figures
Milestones
The project kicks off with a local event and engagement with stakeholders
Launch of Citizen Observatory, exploratory co-creation events, sensoristic infrastructures
Citizens are involved and incentivised to adopt greening actions and sustainable mobility
Real-time monitoring and response systems are functional, and Eco-Guilds are operational
The testing process is advanced, and lessons learned are transferred to key local actors
Strategies for upscaling the solution build on measurements of its synergetic impact
