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Dordrecht – Dordwijkzone (Dubbeldam)

The rough size of the pilot area is 15 hectares, lying between the City Park XXL (or Dordwijkzone) and the residential area of Dubbeldam. The City Park XXL is the most important ecological structure within the city network on the isle of Dordrecht, with many well-developed forests, recreational areas, grasslands and swampy areas. 

The City Park XXL connects with the tidal river system the Wantij in the north and the international protected nature reserve Biesbosch in the south. The shores of the Wantij-river bring (tidal) nature from the Biesbosch via the City Park XXL in connection with the city centre, and especially with the residential areas that lie adjacent to it. One of these is the neighbourhood Dubbeldam. This neighbourhood, forming a part of the entire residential area Dubbeldam, consist of the streets: Nijhofflaan, Baron van Boetzelaerlaan, Haaswijkweg-West, Burgemeester Struijkstraat, Berkenhof en Buitenrust. The neighbourhood has a high density of houses and infrastructure, therefore the public space has little green (forests, grassland) and blue (water, ponds) values, despite being nearby the City Park XXL. 

The environmental challenge lies in the fact that there is still no functional green and blue network between the nature areas, the City Park XXL and neighbourhoods, like Dubbeldam, next to the city park. The forested areas and water streams suddenly stop on the border of the City Park XXL. Therefore inhabitants cannot be part of the green and blue structures and face a number of environmental challenges. When it rains a lot on a summer day, the drainage system faces a big risk of overflooding. On a hot summer day inhabitants have to walk more than 300 metres to find cool spots in the area, and due to the lack of shade, homes can get up to 3-5 degrees hotter than these cool spots. 

The most important challenge is that green and blue values are not being used for social challenges. Green structures have a relaxing effect on people, lowering stress and boosting happiness.

The value of apartments and houses rise when there are well developed green-blue structures in their area. The social distance of the local inhabitants to nature is also big - people don’t see the many benefits (yet), and the public spaces and gardens are full of functional non-indigenous plants. At the same time, people complain a lot about the small remaining green-blue structures in the streets. They believe it is untidy, because the fruits, flowers and leaves fall on the ground, on cars and in backyards. People also seem to believe that green and blue structures attract rats. 

The inhabitants face other challenges in the neighbourhood. The housing association has plans to demolish houses and redevelop the public area. Simultaneously, the municipality has scheduled a lot of work in the open space, like replacing the sewage system and street (profiles).

The choice for Dubbeldam as a pilot area is therefore a “no-brainer”. In development areas there are a lot of possibilities to build natural green and blue structures in the neighbourhood, and to involve the local inhabitants, so that they feel included in the process of creating and managing their new living space. For the municipality is this a big opportunity to realise a green and blue network, where the nature in the Biesbosch is connected with the backyard of houses in Dubbeldam via the City Park XXL, overall enhancing the biodiversity in Dordrecht. To do research and involve the local citizens, we believe we can raise the sense of responsibility they have for a healthy and natural environment. We believe they will undertake actions to help maintain a nature-inclusive new neighbourhood. 

Interventions

  • The development of green-blue structures that effectively connect the nature areas (Biesbosch) with seminatural (parks and recreational areas) with the residential areas in Dordrecht
  • Nature-inclusive designing of houses and gardens (private properties) in the area of Dubbeldam
  • Enhance the quantity and quality of habitats of local wildlife, especially for the habitats forests, water streams and city ecology

Doing research on the presence of plant and animal species in the pilot area, we will focus on mobile insects (butterflies, bees), macrofauna and mammals. We start to measure the presence of wildlife before we start executing all measures that are necessary to enhance the biodiversity and to form robust and large green-blue structures in the pilot area. With knowledge of populations in Dubbeldam we will know which and how much wildlife is present. We choose butterflies and bees, because it is possible to see quick changes, because they are very mobile, but at the same time they are vulnerable species. Furthermore, they are interesting for local citizens. We investigate them on sunny days in the active period of the insects. We will do this spread over three periods from April to September. We will investigate the public spaces and also a number of houses and yards. 

We investigate mammals by placing cameras in public areas and backyards. The camera senses movement and will make a picture of the animal at that moment. Macrofauna are present in the watersystems and are an indicator for water quality. Macrofauna includes larvae of different small insects like mosquitoes. In the City Park XXL we have already investigated the public areas and we will analyse the results of both investigations. After we have executed the plans in the pilot area we will repeat the investigations the same way as described above. In this way we can analyse if we have enhanced the biodiversity and what we can do to, if necessary, adjust the plans so we create more suitable habitats for the wildlife. 

Questions to consider include: How should we maintain newly formed blue and green structures? How could the citizens use new green-blue structures for recreational purposes or other means? How will the biodiversity change after the plans have been executed? 

After this step we will create a socially accepted and biodiverse plan to connect the green network of City Park XXL with Dubbeldam and we can begin execution.

Objectives & Expected Impact

We expect great impact from the plans in the residential area of Dubbeldam. The main objective is to reach the nature-inclusive society by connecting (semi)nature areas with the backyards of local citizens with green and blue structures. We expect the following impact:

  • We enhance the local biodiversity by strengthening the support they need to survive, migrate and reproduce;
  • We create a socially and naturally accepted nature-inclusive design in the pilot area;
  • People feel happier, are more active and are more involved with the local wildlife;
  • We (partially) solve the environmental challenges we face today, such as heavy flooding after rainfall, the heat-island effect, and poorly developed green areas.