As climate extremes intensify across Europe, an ambitious new initiative led by the Horizon Europe SpongeWorks project is demonstrating how a mosaic of nature-based measures can restore the sponge function of landscapes—helping to retain water, protect soils, and enhance climate resilience at scale.
In Trikala, Greece, a new “Sponge Park” is being established as a flagship demonstration site: covering an area of 2 hectares, the park will feature a wide range of small-scale fully functioning implementation of sponge measures drawn from implementation sites across the project — including low tillage, mulching, terracing with water harvesting, buffer strips, hedges, and riparian forest planting.
Sponge measures are designed to restore and enhance natural hydrological processes, helping to retain water where it falls, reduce runoff, and preserve and regenerate soil and water systems. The Sponge Park will display in action a variety of measures, normally spread out across large landscapes and diverse European regions, in a user-friendly, well known and easily accessible location in Trikala, where experts, residents, and visitors can walk around and explore.
The area which will host the new “Sponge Park” in Trikala city (green space below-centre in the photo)
Demonstrating the SpongeWorks Vision on the Ground
The SpongeWorks project, funded under Horizon Europe and involving 28 partners across the continent, aims to prove that a network of decentralised, natural water retention measures—carefully adapted to local needs—can deliver real, measurable impact across entire river basins, at the landscape scale. By enhancing “sponge function”, the capacity to retain excess water and later release it slowly when needed, it aims to make decisive contribution to tackling some of Europe’s most pressing environmental threats: floods, droughts, soil infertility and erosion, and water scarcity.
The city of Trikala, a SpongeWorks partner known for its leadership in urban innovations, is playing a pioneering role in this vision. Located in the Thessaly region—an area hit hard by drought and recent catastrophic flooding—Trikala’s Sponge Park will act as a high-visibility demonstration park for urgently needed Nature-based Solutions that can be scaled across other vulnerable regions in Europe.
The Municipality of Trikala is converting this municipal green space of 2 hectares into the first “Sponge Park”.
Design Meets Function: Innovation Through Collaboration
To realise this vision, SpongeWorks is collaborating with Leibniz University Hannover, the project’s coordinating partner, to launch a student design competition. Students from the university’s Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences department will submit proposals for the layout and landscape architecture of the Sponge Park. The winning design, to be selected in September, will strike a balance between ecological performance, visual appeal, and public engagement, and construction based on the winning designs will begin shortly thereafter.
Christian Albert, SpongeWorks coordinator and Professor of Landscape Planning at LUH, said: “I see the Sponge Park as a very important feature to showcase the feasibility and positive impacts of sponge measures, and I am very happy about the opportunity for our students to learn more about the concept and to support the sponge park creation with creative ideas and design suggestions.”
Giorgos Chrysomallos, CEO of e-Trikala S.A., said: “The Sponge Park is a unique opportunity for our city to bring climate innovation closer to citizens. By showcasing real, tangible examples of nature-based solutions, we aim to inspire awareness, learning, and action—starting here in Trikala and reaching across Europe.”
Once complete, the Trikala Sponge Park will serve as a living laboratory and public showcase for the SpongeWorks approach—bringing together scientists, regional implementers, designers, and local community representatives from across European regions to collaboratively explore climate-resilient landscape strategies.
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The SpongeWorks project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101156116 and from the UK Research and Innovation/HM Government. The project runs from 1 September 2024 to 31 August 2028.
Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority, the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.