Integrated Transport and Green Infrastructure Planning in the Danube-Carpathian Region for the Benefit of People and Nature
TRANSGREEN aims to contribute to safer and environmentally-friendly road and rail networks in mountainous regions of the Danube Basin with a special focus on the Carpathian Mountains. It will do so by improving planning frameworks and developing concrete environmentally-friendly and safe road and rail transport solutions taking into account elements of Green Infrastructure, in particular ecological corridors.
An interdisciplinary partnership comprised of planners, economists, engineers, and ecologists will integrate and apply their specific knowledge across the region and cooperate on developing Guidelines on integrated transport infrastructure planning, construction, management and monitoring, taking into account aspects of road safety and biodiversity conservation. Partners will also collaborate on the production of ready-to-use methodologies for stakeholder participation processes, training modules on Environmental Impact Assessment with a focus on ecological corridors, and Catalogues of measures for each of the four pilot sites located in Beskydy (CZ-SK), Miskolc-Kosice-Uzhgorod (HU-SK-UA), Tirgu Mures-Iasi and Arad(Radna)-Deva (RO).
Background
The Carpathian Mountains and other mountainous areas in the Danube Basin still harbour species and habitats that are close to extinction in other parts of Europe, such as bears, wolves and lynx. These well conserved, connected ecosystems are still rather resilient to climate change impacts.
As the economy is picking up in the region, an increase in transport and related infrastructure is to be expected and planned. This will potentially have a high biodiversity impact, as spatial demands for transport infrastructure and the increase of traffic flows cause landscape fragmentation and barriers for wildlife corridors and can cause infringements of EU legislation such as the Birds and Habitats Directives. Also, large mammals, for example, can pose a risk to traffic safety when they cross a road that cuts through their migration corridor.
While negative effects of transport and the relative fragility of mountainous ecosystems are asking for the identification of innovative solutions to reduce harmful impact, transport planners are widely lacking experience and expertise for mitigating ecological impacts of transport infrastructure and safety issues related to wildlife crossing. Moreover, in some countries, there is a lack of biodiversity baseline data and planning processes do not take into consideration sufficient time for data collection and monitoring. This situation has caused conflicts with nature conservation stakeholders and consequently lengthy delays.
Guidance and security of planning are needed from project developers and the conservation community alike.
Goals & Objectives
Overall Objective
- Contribute to an environmentally friendly and safer road and rail network in the Carpathians as part of the wider Danube river basin by integrating objectives of green infrastructure maintenance into TEN-T related transport infrastructure development at the local, national and transnational level across relevant sectors.
Specific Objectives
- Address the lack of cooperation and understanding between the transport and nature conservation sector at the local, national and transnational level in the Carpathians.
- Address low level of understanding of impacts of transport infrastructure development on ecological corridors informing the decision-making processes.
- Address the need for best-practice examples and innovative measures for implementing measures to improve transport infrastructure and its permeability for wildlife.
Activities
- Establish a scientifìc knowledge base for sound decision making regarding environmentally-friendly transport infrastructure development approaches and policies to be used by planners and decision-makers.
- Develop a Planning toolkit to support implementers and policymakers, multipliers, planners, and managers.
- Develop a catalogue of measures for each pilot site with practical measures for making transport infrastructure safer and environmentally friendly in each of the pilot areas.
- Elaborate a draft text of the Strategic Action Plan for the Carpathian Convention for guidance on transport.
- Promote cross-sectoral cooperation and integrated transport development at the regional and national levels.
Types of services
- Education
- Advocacy
- Policymaking
- Networking
- Lobbying
- Fieldwork
- Dissemination