Urban Waterfronts as Areas where Social-Ecological Systems meet: A Blue-Green Infrastructure Connectivity Perspective

This study was presented in a Poster session at the GfÖ24 Conference, organized by the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, between 9–13 September 2024. The waterfront connects aquatic and terrestrial habitats, and its landscape quality is an indicator of the status of blue-green infrastructure. Especially in urban areas, the consequences of direct human interventions on the waterfront are evident, yet there is a need for more comprehensive and easy approaches to quantify the dynamics of the waterfront landscapes. Herein, we propose a simple, rapid, and effective method, the “Waterfront Development Index” (WDI), for characterizing the relative waterfront usage in metropolitan areas. We found that despite the highly promoted river restoration efforts, the transformation of natural and seminatural waterfronts to extensive human land use is an ongoing process across German metropolitan areas.!!!Natural waterfronts of metropolitan rivers need restoration as well as protection/ conservation efforts!!! This study was conducted within my EU-funded (hashtag#MSCA, hashtag#EuroTechPostdoc2 program) project TransConnECT (https://lnkd.in/d2RByeXB).I am grateful to the co-authors, the host (Prof. Dr. rer. Nat. Juergen Geist, Technical University of Munich) and co-host (Assoc. Prof. Dr. Roland Löwe, DTU - Technical University of Denmark) of my project, TransConnECT. TransConnECT has received funding from the European Union’sHorizon 2020 research and innovation programme under theMarie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 899987, within the scope of hashtag#EuroTechPostDoc2 program of hashtag#EuroTech Universities Alliance.