Embedding social inclusiveness and appropriateness in engineering assessment of green infrastructure to enhance urban resilience

Abstract

Urban resilience emerges not only from 'what' is done in relation to critical infrastructure systems, but in the 'how' of their conception, co-creation and integration into complex socio-ecological-technical systems. For green infrastructure, where ownership and agency may be distributed amongst organisations and diverse communities, inclusiveness and appropriateness require embedding in engineering assessments of green infrastructure and resilience. Through consideration of past, present and future engineering and resilience assessmentsfrom monetising, through greening, to humanisingthis paper examines the ways in which GI may be or has already contributed to enhancing urban resilience and types of assessment and indicators that have been or could be used. We suggest that enhancing visibility of the 'whos' (individuals, communities) is crucial to fully diversifying assessments. We also suggest some ideas for additional indicators and assert that co-production of future indicators needs to be undertaken with appropriate professionals (e.g. social impact assessment professionals).

Resocializing digital water transformations: Outlining social science perspectives on the digital water journey

“…We have discussed how interdisciplinary approaches could enable Big Data, artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to more fully represent water systems, and how participatory digital methods could be used to generate grounded data and analytical sensitivities to address historical obfuscations. These developments could improve modeling, prediction and planning in water systems (Hoolohan, McLachlan, & Larkin, 2019; Sharmina et al, 2019; Ward et al, 2019), but require a pluralistic research environment that addresses the underrepresentation of the social sciences in evidence‐based policy and planning. A pluralistic research environment is sensitive to differences in epistemologies and praxes in research communities and supportive of mutual social learning (Pahl‐wostl et al, 2007).…”

Integrated urban stormwater management: Evolution and multidisciplinary perspective

“…New projects dealing with urban water and green infrastructure should not only lay claim to social objectives which usually remain vague and consensual, but should really take them explicitly into account and propose ways and methods to evaluate their realisation and their effectiveness. Some approaches are emerging, aiming to identify possible conflicts between stakeholders, conciliate engineering and social stakes, and open a new field of research and action and stimulate discussion (Vierikko and Niemelä, 2016;Ward et al, 2019;Meerow, 2020).…”

A systematic review of approaches for modelling current and future impacts of extreme rainfall events using green infrastructure

“…Social-technical perspectives are efficient in analysing elements dependent on the behaviour of those who use it (Lamond and Everett, 2019). Therefore, these approaches can provide a deeper understanding of how GI design alternatives, co-creation and incorporation into dynamic socio-ecological-technical processes can be improved (Ward et al, 2019) and how GI alternatives impact (or are impacted by) landuse planning. Such strategies can enhance the awareness of practitioners, individuals and communities, which is important in recognising a diversification of assessments (Ward et al, 2019).…”