Nature today | What are the most promising actions for biodiversity within Dutch infrastructure?

together with green nets The Naturalis is city Work on the formation of infrastructure measures, in order to contribute to the restoration of biodiversity on a large scale in the Netherlands. Groene Netten is a partnership of eight of the Netherlands’ top infrastructure managers: Alliander, Enexis, Gasunie, KPN, ProRail, Rijkswaterstaat, Stedin and Tennet. Together, these parties manage an area of ​​land and water of approximately one thousand square kilometres. Green Nets creates major environmental infrastructure through the combined use of this area of ​​biodiversity. This creates more space than Veluwe as nature is given more space.

Impact on biodiversity

The biodiversity project covers different areas, such as the land around railways, power towers and highwaysStedin lists potential infrastructure measures for design, construction, and modifications to land spaces, infrastructure, and (nature) management, in order to obtain an overview of actions that have a real impact on biodiversity. Naturalis later got an expert opinion. About forty (urban) ecologists and biologists have supplemented this list of measures, for example by adding new metrics and estimating the impact on important parts of Dutch biodiversity for each metric.

All affecting actions are then illustrated on a poster. The poster shows all proposed infrastructure measures, plus there is a table with do’s and don’ts, additional information and average biodiversity scores. This list is widely applicable to Stedin, Groene Netten, and many other organizations. “The Overview consists of fifty comprehensive nature measures that we as organizations can implement in and around our infrastructure. With extensive input from ecologists and biologists, the poster inspires an acceleration of the transition to a future-proof infrastructure,” says Dan Helming, Environmental Infrastructure Project Leader The main green networks.

do more good

In Steden’s new sustainability strategy, biodiversity will become one of the four most important topics. “Because national and global biodiversity is under severe pressure,” explains Director of Sustainability Dirk Bell de Vreux of Steden. In addition, the topic provides opportunities. “The energy transition, agricultural transformation, challenges surrounding housing and ongoing urbanization, are placing increasing pressures on available land. All these transformations are taking place in the same physical space,” continues Bijl de Vroe.

By making biodiversity part of the strategy, Stedin can facilitate the transmission of energy while at the same time working to green and enhance the diversity of plants and animals. “We can make a positive difference by installing measures such as green roofs and facades, implementing green environmental management and replacing stones with green spaces. In collaboration with all the organizations of the Green Nets coalition, we are even talking about more than a thousand square kilometers of greening. Then it is no longer a matter of ‘doing’ The least amount of bad,” but rather “more good.”

more information

text: Naturales & city
Photos: Kars Feeling; green nets

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *