Region: Suriname
Description: Urban green spaces play an important role in the quality of life in cities. Parks, lanes, gardens, green belts provide various benefits to our well-being. This includes cooling the direct environment, preventing erosion, promoting rainwater infiltration, aesthetics, and opportunities for recreation. With increased urbanization worldwide, the challenges for urban planning and keeping the city liveable are increasing. Climate change threatens to exacerbate this, for example with expected increases in temperature. The benefits of green spaces are not the same everywhere. So far, research has mainly been done in temperate regions such as in Europe and the US. What are the advantages of urban green spaces the tropics where vegetation and lifestyle are clearly different? And how can information and understanding help to motivate people to promote and protect greenery in the city? Tropenbos Suriname and the University of Twente have been working together since 2018 in a twinning context; we learn from each other. In Paramaribo, the capital of tropical Suriname, we aim better understand this role through remote sensing, spatial modelling and we are testing the use of small weather sensors to measure the cooling effect of vegetation. Beside this, we developed free teaching materials, are freely sharing all our data for use by others, and are organizing activities for residents (for more information click here). Citizens play a big role in this. Dozens of people, schools and societal organizations monitor the functions and use of green spaces on a monthly basis in order to gain knowledge of the changes and to share this knowledge with others in order to take smarter action.
Do you want to know more?
- Read this article about our citizen science and innovation in IP magazine. (In Dutch)
- Listen to citizen researchers and Davita Obergh of Tropenbos Suriname how monitoring works (In Dutch)
- Or watch this short animation about green spaces in the city and why this research is important (Switch on the English subtitles)
Partners: Tropenbos Suriname
Sponsors: UTSN Twinning, NWO, ITC Geo-Citizen Science Seed Grant
Contact: