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Green Infrastructure in urban areas

What is green infrastructure?

Green infrastructure (GI) has become prominent in spatial planning, policy and research over the last few decades. It is widely understood as a network of physical features that provides ecological, economic and social benefits to society through nature-based solutions (NBS), underpinning human well-being and quality of life.

Why is green infrastructure important for cities?

More and more cities struggle with the challenges of unsustainable urbanisation and related human health issues, degradation, and the loss of natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides. The creation, conservation and management of GI in urban areas can play a key role in addressing these developmental challenges. Potential benefits derived from GI include the mitigation of urban heat island effects, flood risk reduction, the absorption of CO2 (the emissions of which can be extensive), the provision of sustainable transport options (e.g. walking and cycling lanes), and generally improved mental health and well-being.

Rather unsurprisingly, European cities in general have more green space in their surrounding areas than in their centres. Approximately 100 European cities have as much green space in the core city as in the commuting zone. Cities that have more green space in their core than in their hinterland are distributed across several European countries, but most of these cities are in Spain and the United Kingdom.

What do cities need to implement green infrastructure?

According to a stakeholder survey conducted within the framework of the ESPON GRETA (Green Infrastructure: Enhancing Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Territorial Development) project, the main factor that supports the process of implementing GI is strategic vision. Such a vision is ideally implemented through taking a GI approach to planning that integrates different sector policies and different levels of governance. Stakeholders also need sufficient knowledge and training to be able to fully tap into the potential for GI development.

How can cities finance green infrastructure?

Local authorities tend to have the main responsibility for implementing GI in Europe because of their remit of planning and investing in urban infrastructure. This means that they can choose between investing in grey or green infrastructure, giving them a key role in stimulating GI development.

The private sector also has an important role to play in GI investment and the development of innovative ‘green’ technologies in general. Likewise, partnerships between public authorities and the private sector can offer opportunities for GI implementation.

Map on the left: Share of green (and blue) urban areas for all core cities in Europe. It is clear that many European cities (including their commuting zones) are relatively green, and many comprise more than 80% green areas.

There is a concentration of core cities with lower shares of green (and blue) urban areas in a corridor from the United Kingdom, over the Benelux countries and Germany to the north-eastern part of Europe (Poland and the Baltic countries). Other clusters of cities with relatively low shares of green urban areas are visible in northern Italy and Romania.

The highest shares of green urban areas inside core cities are recorded in Spain and the Scandinavian countries.

There are two main options for financing GI that can be, but are not necessarily, building blocks for GI in urban areas:

Direct implementation or maintenance of relevant projects, especially on municipality-owned land. The municipality pays for the intervention, either through funds it already has or by obtaining loans and revenues to finance the project.

Indirect implementation of projects by encouraging other actors, e.g. residents, utility providers or businesses, to implement the intervention on their private property. Local authorities could also contribute to the maintenance of the existing GI in the public domain. In this case, they would provide incentives to other stakeholders or stimulate private finance by other means.

Read more: Policy Brief-Green Infrastructure in urban areas

What role can strategic environmental assessment play in green infrastructure management and planning?

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is a tool based on an EU directive that ensures the integration of environmental assessment into the preparation and adoption of all strategies, plans and programmes at the earliest opportunity. The ESPON GRETA project identified SEA as an example of a policy tool suitable for incorporating GI into strategies, plans and programmes.

Including GI in SEA could help to establish a common framework for implementing GI in all EU Member States. This framework not only should promote GI as a sectoral element of planning, but should contribute to enhancing strategic thinking and the positioning of ecological processes and their benefits as relevant planning criteria for more resilient territorial development.

Map above: changes in the shares of urban green spaces between 2006 and 2012. In general, cities with stable or decreasing shares of green space dominate the map.

While a stable situation is more prevalent in central and northwestern Europe (in particular in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom, but also in the Alpine countries), a large proportion of cities with decreasing shares of green space can be observed in eastern and southern European countries, as well as in Finland and the Netherlands.

The Spanish cities of Pamplona (–7.8%) and Getafe (–7.6%), and Communauté d’agglomération de Sophia Antipolis in France (also –7.6%) experienced the largest decreases in shares of urban green space.

The share of urban green space increased in only three cities: Faro (Portugal, +3.3%), Nice (France, +2.3%) and Capelle aan den Ijssel (the Netherlands, +0.7%).

In eastern and southern European countries, the most likely reason for the decline in the share of urban green areas is urbanisation due to economic development after these countries joined the EU (eastern Europe) or for touristic purposes (southern Europe).

This article appears in Green infrastructure and reuse of spaces

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