From July 3-13, 2020, the IV International Summer School 3MUGIS (Monitoring, Modeling and Managing Urban Soils and Green Infrastructure) was held on the basis of the Department of Landscape Design and Sustainable Ecosystems at RUDN University. The school is organized with the support of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF) and under the umbrella of the International Union of Soil Scientists (IUSS) and the New York City Soil Institute in collaboration with universities, research institutions and research groups from around the world.
“Sustainable city means green city”: scientists, practitioners and municipal services discussed new challenges and prospects for sustainable megalopolises
From July 8 to 10, 2020, the Smart and Sustainable Cities international conference in advanced technologies for sustainable development of urban green infrastructure was held on the base of the Department of Landscape architecture and sustainable ecosystems. Due to specific circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held online. However, this did not prevent the conference for the second time from becoming an open discussion platform uniting not only the research community, but also municipal services, environmental protection agencies and organizations working in the field of urban management and landscaping.
Particular attention in organizing the SSC-2020 conference was paid to attracting young scientists – participants of the 3MUGIS Summer School, which was held from July 3 to 13. The conference brought together more than 100 participants from Russia, USA, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine, Kazakhstan with the involvement of leading russian and foreign experts in the field of ecology, soil science, landscape design and sustainable development.
The SUN lab team summed up the results of the one-year work
On June 24, 2020, the annual Board meeting of the Smart Urban Nature Lab was held. The meeting took its place online and was devoted to a discussion of the results of the laboratory’s work. The Board meeting gathered all the lab’s scientists and experts headed by Riccardo Valentini as well as invited international colleagues and external experts from France, Italy, Germany and Russia.
In more details scientists discussed the current SUN project “Smart technologies to monitor, model and evaluate ecosystem services provided by urban green infrastructure and soils to support decision making in sustainable city development under global changes” which was financed by Russian Science Foundation and started in May 2019.
Theory and practice cooperate for sustainable urban development
On April 29, 2020 a round-table “Urban Ecology. Theory for practice” was held in an online format. The main topic was focused on the interaction of theorists in urban ecology and practitioners in urban development and landscape architecture. The participants of the round table – researchers, architects and designers of urban environment – presented their projects and discussed the features and prospects of communication between researchers of urban ecosystems and specialists of Russian urban planning and improvement. The discussion focused on the impact of environmental data of modern cities on the work of urban decision makers. The event was organized by Smart Urban Nature Laboratory of RUDN University and the Guild of Landscape Engineers (Moscow).
Tree Talkers will monitor Moscow trees
In 2020, the Moscow Government will begin monitoring urban trees using instruments created by RUDN scientists stated the head of the Department of Nature Management and Environmental Protection of the city of Moscow Anton Kulbachevsky at the 20th anniversary meeting of the Board of the department.
RUDN discusses promising projects and advanced technologies in the field of urban environmental monitoring
September 5-7, a series of events was held on the basis of the Department of Landscaping and Sustainable Ecosystems of RUDN ATI, dedicated to advanced technologies for monitoring green spaces in urban environments. Employees of the department, invited foreign researchers, as well as representatives of companies in the field of eco-monitoring presented their research projects and practical achievements in assessing the state of urban green infrastructure, shared their experience with monitoring devices, discussed the data and outlined the main prospects for the development of international cooperation in this area.