B.Green – Baltic Green Urban Infrastructure Planning

The Pollinator Highway is a meadow-like natural environment rich in species, a green corridor and a space for people to move through six city districts in Tallinn. The Pollinator Highway runs along a former railway embankment and today’s high-voltage line corridor. When the high-voltage lines are moved into the underground cable, the potential for a city-wide linear park is released.

Urban environments experience heavier heat stress than natural environments because buildings, pavements and parking lots create urban heat islands. To cope with the increasing heat during climate warming, more green and blue spaces are needed in cities – parks, trees along the pavements, and permeable soils.

In 2022, 18 climate sensors were installed in Tallinn for the B.Green project. These sensors will measure the temperature, relative humidity and precipitation in different parts of the city.

The measurements will give an understanding of how heat waves affect Tallinn and where green spaces could help create a more livable environment.

These 18 sensors provide weather  information in real time and everyone interested can also see the weather forecast for the following hours and days in different locations.

More information about the urban weather sensor methodology can be found here.

The aim of the handbook is to guide urban planners and other stakeholders interested in promoting green infrastructure planning. It introduces digital and participatory tools as solutions that can help planners overcome some of the major challenges when planning green infrastructure. These tools are presented holistically in the context of the planning process. These tools and accompanying processes have been developed by the two capital cities – Helsinki and Tallinn – in the B.Green project. These are supplemented with experiences from various cities in the Central Baltic region.

The handbook is set up to provide multiple topics as entry points: climate resilience, planning challenges, digital tools, participatory methods and planning phases.

In 2021 a survey was organized by the B.Green project. The goal of the survey was to map the attitudes and insights of Helsinki and Tallinn residents related to green infrastructure planning and participatory methods. It focused on two related projects: Kalasatama in Helsinki and the Pollinator Highway in Tallinn.