In Porto city, Campanhã parish was identified as one of the priority areas for urban regeneration aiming at a more sustainable improvement of local living conditions. This area faces severe socio-economic challenges territorial aggravated by isolation, due to lack of accessibility, safety, feeling of security and poor overall conditions of the urban space. Despite these challenges, this area is especially rich in green areas and vacant lots that represent unique opportunities for urban regeneration to tackle the identified issues, especially through the use of multifunctional nature-based solutions (NBS). The potential for improvement in this area is fairly recognized by the number of strategic investments that the Municipality of Porto is planning for the area.

Within Campanhã parish, URBiNAT project was able to define a specific study area to develop an extensive analysis of the territory and dialogue with local actors, aligned with the identification of available public areas that could be used for the implementation of NBSs.

During this co-diagnostic phase (Deliverable 2.1), different but complementary methodologies were used to acquire the needed information (see 2.2. From the Co-diagnostic to Co-design).

Moreover, existing public areas with high social impact, main services, facilities and green spaces were also accounted for the definition of the study area, as well as future municipal projects, in order to avoid investment overlaps and promote strategic synergies, amplifying project’s impact in the territory.

By the end of the co-diagnostic, it was possible to collect enough framework information about the city, the parish and the study area that, combined and synthesized, allowed for the identification of a new work scale – the project’s intervention area (Figure 1). This area, with a total of 4 hectare was defined by a deductive exercise and is located in the interface between three municipal housing neighbourhoods for social rental (Cerco do Porto, Falcão and Lagarteiro) and several important facilities and services (e.g., Oriental City Park, Corujeira Square, Campanhã Cemetery, local schools, sport facilities, Oliveira Urban Garden). Besides the several socio economic and environmental challenges that led to the definition of the intervention area as pivotal for the implementation of the Healthy Corridor, it is important to highlight the occurrence of severe issues of connectivity mainly due to topographic characteristics (Campanhã valley) and physical barriers (highway infrastructure).

Figure 2, highlights the definition process of the study area and intervention area within URBiNAT.