The ninth in this series of AIPH Green City Briefings will focus on how integrating plants and green spaces into urban projects has multiple benefits for both the environment and citizens. Registrations are open for this online webinar, which takes place at 1pm BST on 13th June 2023.
Organised by the International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) in collaboration with the Worshipful Company of Gardeners (WCoG) and sponsor Expo 2023 Doha Qatar, the AIPH Green City Briefings 2022/23 are a series of one-hour webinars focusing on cities around the world that demonstrate significant progress in including plants and nature in their city’s form and function.
Mashhad, Iran, a finalist in the AIPH World Green City Awards 2022, is the feature city for this Briefing. The city has a population of over three million, with around 20 million pilgrimages and tourists yearly. Construction of a 27km highway project began in 1990 in order to facilitate citizens’ access to suburban highways, and reduce traffic pressure on the inner-city streets. However, within a few decades, the negative effects of this project were observed impacting the surrounding environment. In 2018 the transformation of the transport belt began.
Dr Mahdi Jalili Mehrabani, Project Manager for Development of West of Mashhad, will talk about the transformation of the transport belt. Multiple projects were designed with the aim of preserving the environment and also developing native vegetation, transforming the “Southern Transport Belt” into a “Green Belt”.
Joining Mahdi in this Briefing session is Julian Dobson, a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University. Julian’s research expertise is in social and economic regeneration, urban greenspace, town and city centres and the civic impact of universities. In his presentation, he will focus on who benefits from green spaces in cities.
The subject of this webinar, as with all of the AIPH Green City Briefings 2022-23, resonates with the theme of sponsor Expo 2023 Doha, Qatar, in showing a commitment to creating better spaces for city residents. Recognising that community engagement is part of success, Expo 2023 Doha Qatar motivates that, without a change in the mindset of the people and their perspectives on the future, the sustainability of any endeavour would not be possible. City greening, particularly in arid climates, is an increasingly urgent topic, because it can present answers to global water, energy, and food scarcity. Expo 2023 Doha Qatar is open from 2 October 2023 to 28 March 2024 and anticipates 3 million local and international visitors.
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AIPH
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