Europe’s cities now have a powerful new resource to accelerate the planning and monitoring of urban nature plans and greening strategies. This is the newly published Handbook of Tools for Informing and Monitoring Urban Greening Strategies and Nature Plans - prepared by the Science Service for Biodiversity that is being developed by BioAgora in collaboration with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD). The handbook and its accompanying database and tool recommender provide policymakers, urban planners, and researchers with a practical overview of 59 digital tools that can help design and implement greening interventions and track progress towards more resilient and biodiverse cities.
The handbook, the database and the tool recommender, were produced by an international team of experts in response to a policy request by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV) submitted to the KCBD ticketing system. Together, these outputs map and assess a wide range of planning-support tools - from simple dashboards and benchmarking frameworks to advanced spatial modelling tools - that support cities in achieving the targets of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR).
“Our goal is to equip local authorities and urban planners with practical, widely used software, methods, and modelling approaches, helping them map green infrastructure, assess biodiversity and ecosystem services, and monitor how their urban strategies and plans affect nature and people,” said M. Susana Orta-Ortiz, University of Trento, one of BioAgora’s focal points and editor of this report.
A practical guide for urban decision-makers
The handbook assesses each tool’s ease of use, cost, data and skill requirements, policy relevance, and so on, grouping them into five functional clusters, including benchmarking tools, exploratory tools for spatial-explicit challenges, policy-support tools, specialised modelling tools, and multi-purpose spatial decision-support tools. Case studies from cities such as Lisbon, Leipzig, Glasgow, and Birmingham demonstrate how these tools are already shaping greener neighbourhoods - from restoring pollinator habitats and cooling overheated streets to improving access to parks and supporting biodiversity-friendly planning.
The accompanying interactive online tool recommender allows users to identify suitable tools for their policy needs, technical capacity, data availability, and planning phase.
Supporting the European Nature Restoration agenda
The handbook directly supports the implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR), particularly its Article 8 on urban nature, by equipping local authorities with evidence-based instruments for planning, implementing, and monitoring urban greening actions. It also provides a foundation for the development of Urban Nature Plans, a key component of the NRR and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.
Access the report and database
To maximise visibility and reuse, the handbook and its accompanying database and tool recommender will be integrated into several online platforms, including the BioAgora website and the Knowledge4Policy portal of the KCBD. The publication is openly accessible under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY 4.0), ensuring free reuse and adaptation with proper attribution.
About BioAgora
BioAgora is a Horizon Europe-funded project that aims to connect research results on biodiversity to the needs of decision-making by supporting the development of a Science Service for Biodiversity that is part of the European Commission and the Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity’s long-term goals.
About the Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD)
Hosted by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the KCBD connects knowledge, data, and expertise to inform the EU’s biodiversity policies and support the implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.
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Funding statement:
Funded by the European Union under grant agreement No. 101059438, BIO-Agora (Bio Knowledge Agora: Developing the Science Service for European Research and BiodiversityPolicymaking). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Citation:
Remme, R., Paling, N., Bruen, A., De Vreese, R., Deserti, A. et al., Handbook of tools for informing and monitoring urban greening strategies and nature plans, Cortinovis, C., Orta-Ortiz, M.S., Vasilakopoulos, P. and Velasco Gomez, M. (editors), Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2025, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/8493055, JRC144165.