The SATURN Pan European Project: Cross-Border and Cross-Practice Approaches for Urban/Rural Linkages towards Climate Adaptation

SATURN (System and sustainable Approach to virTuous interaction of Urban and Rural LaNdscapes) is a pan European EIT Climate-KIC project including three different pilot areas in the city-regions of Birmingham (UK), Trentino (IT), Göteborg (SWE). European urban areas are expanding, thus leading to controversial growth dynamics, and to unbalanced relations between urban and rural landscapes. Therefore, landscape becomes physically fragmented. For this reason, the European Landscape Convention (2000) urges parties to adopt more integrated approaches and to introduce holistic landscape-scale strategies within regional development policy-making processes in order to incorporate ecological and socio-cultural features and better adapt to climate change. SATURN aims to increase landscape multifunctionality and integration that are needed to better respond to climate emergency by addressing air quality, food and water security, and sustainable land uses. In the paper we will propose an analysis of the present European landscape and we will briefly describe the SATURN project, together with the context of the three hubs. The discussion then moves to the challenges contemporary landscape and territories are posing us, and how the three hubs are dealing with the topic of landscape fragmentation in relation with food security issues and through research into practice cooperation with local stakeholders.