Official project start of OLGA

After a delay due to COVID-19, the OLGA project („Optimization of land use at water bodies and in agricultural land for sustainable development of the Dresden region“) officially started on 29.09.2020 with a kick-off meeting at the TU Dresden.

One of the „Sustainable Development Goals“ (SDG) emphasizes the linkage between urban and rural areas for a sustainable regional development. Goal 11 („Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable“) includes strengthening environmental, economic, and social linkages between cities and rural areas, in addition to sustainable development planning and reduction of environmental impacts. This is the motivation of the BMBF project OLGA.

In the projects‘ region of Dresden, considerable differences in the quality of life of the urban and rural population can be found. This creates a distance not only economically, but also emotionally. The aim of OLGA is to counteract this alienation. For this OLGA focuses on water, energy and nutrition. The diversity of OLGA is reflected in the project partners, as natural scientific research is closely linked with e.g. Citizen Science and hands-on knowledge. Therefore, several stakeholders of the TU Dresden (Chair of Biodiversity and Nature Conservation, Chair of Forest Botany, Chair of Hydraulic Engineering, Media Centre), the city of Dresden, the Umweltzentrum Dresden e.V., Biomasse Schraden e.V. and other cooperation partners are involved.

The kick-off meeting was not only attended by the project partners but also by representatives of the project management organization Jülich and Stadtland GmbH. They introduced the BMBF program Stadt Land Plus and the framework conditions of OLGA. Furthermore, they addressed the scientific cross-section project of the initiative and presented other collaborative projects with which future cooperation would be conceivable.