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K. (Karina) Castro Arce

Dr.
Profile picture of K. (Karina) Castro Arce
E-mail:
k.castro.arce rug.nl

Karina Castro-Arce is a Costa Rican environmental planning researcher, who works at regional and urban levels, and focuses on practice-oriented issues. She is part of the Urban and Regional Studies Institute (URSI) from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, where she conducts her PhD. research ‘Towards more Social-ecological Innovative Regions’. She collaborated for several years with the Sustainable Urban Development Program (ProDUS UCR) participating and coordinating in the assessment and design of territorial regulatory plans for various municipalities in the seven provinces of the country. Karina, currently coordinates a project on Nature-Based-Solutions (NBS) for enhancing ecosystem services in riparian urban areas PlantSER-UCR, collaborating with the German research projects PlanSmart and ZEE-URBAN WATER. The project seeks to address climate change and urban growth pressure challenges by offering green and blue infrastructure solutions, in substitution or in combination with traditional - gray - solutions. She is also a lecturer at the School of Geography and the School of Architecture, and working at the Engineering Research Institute (INII) from the University of Costa Rica.

Karina studied a major in architecture at the University of Costa Rica, and has a master's degree in Development Project Management from the Central American Institute of Public Administration (ICAP). She participated in the Master in Risks, Cities and Territorial Planning with an emphasis on Public Policy from the Universidade do Porto, Portugal. She is also Alumni of the International Module of Spatial Development Planning (IMSDP/EMSDP), from the KULeuven, Belgium. Currently, Karina, is concluding her doctoral research at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

Her interests and expertise concentrate on urban and regional environmental planning (practice, regulations and opportunities), social-ecological systems, social innovation, territorial governance, nature-based solutions, and methods for research and practice in territorial planning.

Last modified:25 June 2022 2.37 p.m.