Urban green spaces (UGS) have long been appreciated for their provisioning of multiple ecosystem services and their role in improving residents‘ health and well-being. However, in expanding cities, public parks and forests often remain underprovided; therefore, the role of other forms of green spaces, which would allow the citizens access and direct contact with nature, increases. Additionally, more attention has been given to the high cost of traditional UGS maintenance, e.g., frequent lawn mowing and its negative effects on biodiversity. Therefore, there is a need to promote more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly solutions to UGS that would allow decision-makers to expand the city’s green infrastructure, ensure UGS availability to residents, and boost ecosystem services provisioning by those areas.
We are interested in the functioning of natural ecosystems in urban systems, particularly focusing on various neglected UGS, such as brownfields, wastelands, vacant lots, and other areas where natural succession processes in cities occur.
We invite scientists, designers and students of fields related to environmental engineering, architecture, construction, landscape architecture and spatial planning to participate in the seminar.
We accept presentations fitting into the following topics:
• Analysis of the perception of informal UGS in a social environment (studies of aesthetic preferences and assessment of the impact of the surroundings on the emotional well-being of users);
• Pollution removal, in particular, the role of spontaneous vegetation in the absorption and removal of particulate matter;
• Research identifying qualities that determine the recreation potential of informal UGS;
• Examples and models of bottom-up initiatives (co-designing of space) of informal UGS into well-functioning community spaces;
• The phytoremediation of heavy metal contamination by spontaneous vegetation (copper Cu, zinc Zn, lead Pb, cadmium Cd, chromium Ce , and nickel Ni);
• Carbon dioxide absorption and related oxygen production in comparison to reference areas;
• Ecological potential of informal UGS (biodiversity mapping and bioindicators, including ground beetles, bumblebees and birds, flora and plant communities, etc.);
• The impact of invasive species on the delivery of ecosystem services;
• The role of informal UGS in adaptation of urban areas to climate change.
The seminar will be held in hybrid mode. Place of the meeting: Room 37, building 13, Campus WULS-SGGW in Warsaw Nowoursynowska 166 and online MS Teams platform. Participation in the seminar is free of charge.
The best works that fit thematically will be published in the special issues of following journals:
1. Remote Sensing/MDPI (100 pkt) https://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/special_issues/Environ_Stress
2. Sustainability/MDPI (70 pkt) https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/green_spaces
3. Journal of Water and Land Development (JWLD (itp.edu.pl)) (40 pkt)
4. Acta Scientiarum Polonorum – Architectura (20 pkt). http://www.architectura.actapol.net/
5. Scientific Review Engineering and Environmental Sciences (20 pkt) http://iks_pn.sggw.pl/sr_pl.html

With Bests Greetings,
Organising Committee