The City of Lodz LTSER - Poland

Lodz is the third-largest city in Poland. Located in the central part of the country, approximately 135 km south-west of Warsaw. It has a population of 753,192 people. It is the capital of Lodz Voivodeship. Although Lodz was given city rights in 1423, it developed rapidly only in XIX century. It became a centre of textile industry for central and Eastern Europe. During the economic transition of the 1990s Lodz lost its industry. Since that time it has been developing towards the centre of culture, education, and technology. Lodz has a network of numerous but small water courses, and is located in the hills that constitute the first order watershed between the largest Polish rivers, the Wisła and the Odra. The rivers flow in a star-shaped structure to the north to supply the Bzura, then the Wisła, and to the south to supply the Ner and the Odra. This situation affords benefits in eliminating the risk of flooding posed by one major river, on the other hand, exposing the source areas to adverse environmental conditions resulting from urbanization, is unfavourable, and increases risk of flood and drought. The research in the city is organized around issues like: urban sprawl and its effects on environment, society and health; development of blue-green infrastructure; social inclusion and marginalization; eco-gentrification; ecosystem services and their valuation; development of ecohydrological NBS to support regulatory services in the city. LTSER is strongly focused on implementations in the area of integrative city revitalization, water management, and restoration of rivers. The platform consists of two big demonstration - implementation areas with monitoring system for discharges and water quality, however based on learning-alliance group of stakeholders it is linked to many data sources on environmental monitoring, biodiversity, economy, societal information. The future research-implementation-collaboration challenge is NBS linked revitalization of old town, increase adaptive potential of urban areas to climate change, and protection of green ring and blue-green network of the city.