Urban green spaces as a climate adaptation strategy. Case study in Geneva, Switzerland

In a context marked by the urgency of climate change, dwindling resources, and environmental crisis, concrete action towards ecological transition and climate adaptation is a top priority for urban areas. In response to these multiple challenges, the research project “Maillages fertiles” seizes the opportunity of the reopening and renaturation of two urban rivers in Geneva, Switzerland, to explore the potential of innovative green open spaces as a climate adaptation strategy aimed at making the urban environment viable, desirable and resilient. The multi-criteria evaluation methodology, specifically designed to assess the project’s performance at the neighborhood scale, is based on three main steps: 1) the selection of Swiss and European best practice neighborhoods; 2) the establishment of theoretical reference values (RV) and the calculation of empirical average values (AV); 3) the synoptic presentation of the results based on a qualitative aggregation method. The results show that, given the scale of the climate adaptation challenge, all avenues must be combined to achieve the ambitious goals of urban transition towards improved climate resilience.