Urban green infrastructure – connecting people and nature for sustainable cities (original) (raw)
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Can green infrastructure promote urban sustainability?
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, …, 2009
In 2000, a UK government white paper promoted the prospect of an urban renaissance in the UK to be developed through a series of urban renewal initiatives to create better places for living, working and recreation. Eight years on, there continues to be a policy drive promoting better quality environments through integrative design, social inclusion and public participation. However, whether urban renewal can succeed without a progressive integration of multi-functional green spaces into the urban matrix is still uncertain. This paper proposes that green infrastructure can play a pivotal role in urban renaissance by providing a complementary green matrix of spaces that offer multi-level benefits for human populations. Green infrastructure can also be viewed as simultaneously providing natural resource sinks to assist urban climate control, water management and provide important green networks in an increasingly urbanised Britain. Due to the potential of green infrastructure to be ‘retrofitted’ into most environments, this paper argues that green infrastructures can be delivered across diverse urban environments in the UK to promote sustainable communities and landscape management. Overall, this paper will address how green infrastructure can be planned within urban environments to promote increased human integration, ecological sustainability and economic regeneration. Finally, it is suggested that the broader implications for climate control and economic regeneration delivered by green infrastructure integration will, in the long term, provide a base for a continued urban renaissance.
LANDac Annual International Conference 2021 – Land, Crisis and Resilience – 2 July 2021, ONLINE, 2021
The accelerating need for Urban Greenspaces (UGS) in cities and how to best accommodate it • Session abstract (100 words maximum in past tense *where applicable*) Urban Greenspaces (UGS) are vegetated open spaces that provide a multitude of ecological functions that are essential for the physical and mental well-being of the citizens as well as for the urban environment. However, land is an extremely competitive resource in cities that are struggling to sustain the evergrowing urban population and UGS are constantly under threat of urban encroachment. Even the well spread out cities are pressured to densify by the more commonplace 'sustainable dense urban neighbourhood' approach that in turn, increases the pressure on open spaces such as UGS. But UGS are lacking both by quantity and quality in most cities to support the need of the citizen. Their shortage and inadequacy of UGS were made obvious during the Covid-19 pandemic when the quarantine restricted the mobility of the urban populace and made UGS an essential, and often time, the only outdoor element in everyday city life. As well as lacking in quality and quantity, the pandemic and the resulting extended quarantine also pushed forward the inherent social issues with UGS; such as their unequal distribution, access, ongoing privatisation, 'green gentrification, etc. The session focus was on the multifaceted challenge for UGS management and governance and how to accommodate the growing necessity of UGS in cities that are heightened in a world with Covid-19.
What Really Matters in Green Infrastructure for the Urban Quality of Life
As of 2008, for the first time in human history, half of the world's population now live in cities. And with concerns about issues such as climate change, energy supply and environmental health receiving increasing political attention, interest in the sustainable development of our future cities has grown dramatically.
Ecology and Society
Although green and blue infrastructure (GBI) is recognized throughout the world for its multifunctionality and its large potential to effectively target and engage with existing and novel urban challenges, such as climate change or public health, the full understanding of how it fits into the social, ecological, and technological totality of the urban system lags behind. A widely held assumption is that GBI's inherent multifunctionality means that it may deliver societal benefits while also supporting biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives (e.g., Gómez-Baggethun et al. 2013, Haase et al. 2014, Pauleit et al. 2019, Egerer et al. 2021). Less clear, however, is in what settings and under what conditions urban residents differing in age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or interests may perceive and benefit from urban GBI. Interlinkages between GBI and the built infrastructure, institutions, and residents of the city are positioned as a strategic, if still contested, nexus in urban planning (e.g., Pauleit et al. 2019) and key to wider urban multi-actor governance (e.g., Buijs et al. 2016, Frantzeskaki et al. 2019). This special feature, "Holistic Solutions Based on Nature: Unlocking the Potential of Green and Blue Infrastructure," builds primarily on the ENABLE project (https:// www.biodiversa.org/1014) and focuses on the need for contextsensitive approaches where urban quality of life is understood as co-produced by multiple interlinked factors.
Towards Green(er) Cities: Contextualizing Green Benefits for Urban Spaces and Contemporary Societies
Urban Planning, 2021
There is an expanding understanding of the value and critical need for green(er) cities. It comes at a time when green spaces are depleting on a global scale, in order for cities to host the majority of the world’s population. The contest between diverse land-uses is inflating the pressure on already strained resources, intensifying the growing carbon footprint and impairing water quality, and compromising health and overall quality of life. Soon our cities will be far removed from the safe, clean, and liveable environments, as envisioned in planning theory, if we continue with business-as-usual. There is an increasing scientific appreciation of the interrelated role of green land-uses, the value of our environment and its related ecosystem services, which acts as catalyst to realise the objectives of broader sustainability. Although literature is clear on the importance, role, benefits, and impact of green(er) cities, the realisation of the greening initiatives in practice is still...
Green infrastructure: a new paradigm for developing cities
Land planners and managers dealing with agriculture, forestry and conservation are moving towards landscape approaches to address complex and widespread environmental, social and political challenges that transcend traditional management boundaries. A similar paradigm shift is also required when dealing with urban landscapes, which present a mosaic of opportunities but also a stratification of interests, blockages and conflicts. In existing and future cities open green spaces must be planned and designed to fulfil different interests and needs, provide ecosystem services required by an increasingly urban society, and enhance the rural-urban continuum. Urban landscapes include various elements including trees, soils, water, buildings and roads and are highly affected by human activities. As a result, the governance of a city traditionally involves different entities/institutions, as well as different professional skills. Sound management of urban landscapes cannot disregard the importance of finding ways to harmonize and value these multiple components. Ensuring a sustainable future for cities requires urban forestry, urban agriculture, horticulture, gardens and parks, bioengineering, bio filters, phytoremediation, and other disciplines to be strategically integrated. Green infrastructures (GI) can provide the unifying framework for integrating urban forestry and urban agriculture as well as the other green components of a city. GI can add value to the provision of environmental and social benefits provided by the single green components of a city by strengthening their role in the frame of the longterm vision and of the policy of a city. This paper will present the planning, design and management approaches of cities with diverse cultures, forms, structures and histories which have used GI to economic and environmental services and to strengthening social cohesion and public involvement. The paper will also summarize lessons learned for possible replication.
2014
In a time of continuing urbanization, there is increasing focus on developing attractive and healthy urban environments. Green spaces, ranging from woodlands and parks to allotment gardens and green roofs, provide a range of ecosystem services that contribute to better cities. The GREEN SURGE project set out in 2013 to identify, develop and test ways of linking green spaces, biodiversity, people and the green economy in order to meet the major urban challenges related to land use conflicts, climate change adaptation, demographic changes, and human health and wellbeing. It provided a sound evidence base for urban green infrastructure planning and implementation, exploring the potential for innovation in better linking environmental, social and economic ecosystem services with local communities. Working from the local to the city-regional level, the project aimed to: 1) Develop urban green infrastructure as a planning concept for both integration and promotion of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and adapt it to local contexts. 2) Apply an innovative biocultural diversity perspective to develop successful gov-ernance arrangements facilitating socio-ecological integration and local engagement in planning of urban green spaces. 3) Explore how valuation and real market integration of biodiversity and ecosystem services could facilitate choices in favour of the development of multifunctional green spaces in urban areas. Approaches and tools under these three interlinked objectives were developed and implemented through an integrative, iterative and transdisciplinary process. GREEN SURGE embraced a three-tiered approach of comparative European cases, synthesis of good practices , and establishment of five Urban Learning Labs, strategically selected to represent different urban situations in Europe. Urban Learning Labs were established in the cities of Bari (Italy), Berlin (Germany), Edinburgh (UK), Ljubljana (Slovenia), and Malmö (Sweden). GREEN SURGE worked within cooperative Learning Alliances, a specific type of multistakeholder involvement designed to enhance a process of shared learning and understanding in situations with a high degree of complexity and unpredictability. GREEN SURGE thus combined a projectwide, science-driven approach based on a common framework methodology with a bottom-up knowledge or experience-based approach at the local level. Project Context and Objectives: 2.1 Project context: Worldwide, more than half of the population lives in cities, and this number is still rising. In Europe, more than 70% of the population is already living in urban areas. As Europe and the world continue to urbanize, challenges for sustainable development and human wellbeing will be more concentrated in cities. Urban green space networks (including diverse kinds of green and blue spaces) are increasingly recognised as having an essential role to play in maintaining the human-nature interaction and in tackling various urban challenges. Green spaces can make substantial contributions to policy objectives for sustainable urban development, such as improving public health, protecting biodiversity, enhancing social cohesion, supporting the economy, providing opportunities for recreation, and helping cities adapt to a
Green Building & Construction Economics
The growing impact of extreme weather phenomena in different areas of the globe and the empirical evidence of the economic, social and environmental damage caused by global warming, urgently, calls for appropriate responses. Urban areas are part of the planet where the greatest social costs of global warming will be paid, and so it seems very important to take on the issue of climate change adaptation in land use and urban planning. In several cities, new planning instruments and projects have been developed that highlight a profound cultural change and approach to urban planning that we have known for the last two centuries. The lack of adequate management measures concerning increasingly frequent disasters lead to environmental, economic (e.g., exposure to risks and costs associated with extreme weather events), and social impacts (e.g., health impacts related to air quality, heat islands, etc., with an increase in chronic ailments and various diseases). As recognised by Sustainab...