Site Description

Limassol Municipality is one of the five Follower Cities in the framework of the EuPolis Project. As a Follower City (FL), Limassol Municipality will share the mission of making citizens’ lives better, fulfilled, and unballasted by environmental decay, using nature-based solutions for creating a sustainable healthy and pleasant environment, improve water and air quality and revitalize the soil and re-establish urban biodiversity. The city will follow, replicate, and demonstrate the advantages of the Front Runners’ innovations through mentoring and coaching that will be held in Limassol. Their scope will be the mapping of challenges and identification of all needs and preferences for the selected case study, the monitoring, support and contribution with data related to local conditions, optimization measurements, possibilities as well as any gaps that may exist regarding natural solutions. This will be achieved by distributing questionnaires and surveys to the public, thus enabling the whole community to express its opinion on implementations and upgrades which they consider most ideal for the part of the Municipal Garden on the seafront and will consequently motivate them to visit the area more often and spend more time during each visit.

Demonstration activities

Limassol Municipality has chosen Limassol Public Garden as a case study area. The Public Garden of Limassol is located in the city centre (Limassol is located in the southern coast of the island), right in the heart of the city and at the coastal front of Limassol’s touristic area. Its location gives the opportunity of being visited not only by the local people but also by tourists, as it is very accessible, near to many accommodation services and in walking distance from the famous Limassol’s embankment and the pedestrian street.

Limassol Municipality aims to create a green area for the public (locals and tourists) to use it during leisure and exercising time, introducing green paths for motivating the public to walk. The vision is to succeed a transformation of the existing Limassol’s public garden to a garden with all kinds of Cypriot and generally Mediterranean shrubs and herbs, with trees along the way and benches for people to rest after their walk, exercise or even to enjoy their afternoon coffee.

Moreover, Limassol Municipality plans to include the enhancement of public health and well-being by introducing the project of a new botanical garden along the green paths and by constructing small artificial islands with plants. Aquatic plants such as water lilies and other aquatic plants will be placed onto the islands and into the water, while wooden bridges will be built that will connect the artificial islands and be accessible to the public so that people will also be given the opportunity to study the aquatic world. Overall, the aim is to increase the green areas in the Limassol Urban Area and consequently promote sports and activities near the neighborhood so that citizens do not have to drive to other parks or areas of the city for their personal exercise and leisure walking.