INtroduction

Urban expansion is occurring faster than population growth, and the majority of projected population growth is expected to occur in and around cities. Especially in third world countries megacities are growing fast and lead to several problems. Although basics like water, energy supply and public transport are sometimes reasonably well organised the overall quality of living very often decreases with the rapidly increasing population. That causes e.g. infrastructure and health problems, criminality, a low education level and a bad state of nutrition.

A large series of environmental problems follows after the usually little coordinated use of ecologically important areas, the destruction of ecological buffer zones, informal zonings and the dense implantation of highly profitable high-rise buildings. Mismanagement and missing interest leads to misdevelopment of open spaces, which are difficult to be repaired afterwards.

On the other side garden cities, parks, beach areas and nature reserves in midst of urban areas are usually synonyms for high quality living. A high biodiversity guarantees that open areas act as climatic and biological buffers, are essential for minimising dust and ozone pollution and neutralise noise and stench. Garden areas act as a base for social live, sports, recreation and education. For tourism an interesting "urban wildlife" is highly attractive especially in the tropics and increases the income of adjacent population. Finally a high biodiversity has a high identification value for the urban population. Open areas represent 46% of the actual territory of the municipal area of Recife, part of it consisting of mangroves and fragments of Atlantic forests in hills and parks. These areas are decreasing with the non organized human use and urbanization.

The interdisciplinary project “Open spaces in emerging megacities – potential for nature orientated living in Recife, Brazil” aims to create interdisciplinary and integrated methodologies for the analysis and valuation of development-, vulnerability-, risk-, resilience- and conflict-potentials and -dynamics of open spaces on different spatial scales what allows to elaborate scenarios, models and tools for the use in planning processes. This is done in a holistic and comprehensive applied approach in close cooperation with the local decision makers and further stakeholders, considering their interests and experiences to ensure the acceptance and applicability of the project products. By establishing effective cooperation structures, as well as by means of capacity building activities, including education and participation processes, the project also expects to improve the functionality and governance structures during the planning process.