Green Infrastructure Contribution for Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Landscape Context

Abstract

Abstract. Green infrastructure is strategic and spatial approach to landscape and environment planning, applying key principles of landscape ecology to urban environments, and specifically planning in multiscale approach. It is adopted and developed as a result of the opportunities it has provided in various disciplines to meet ecological, environmental, social challenges of landscape planning. Multi use of green infrastructure has the potential of contributing to climate change adaptation in various scales and regions. Climate change as a result of historical emissions of greenhouse gases would jeopardize cities. The deficiency of existing urban systems to cope with the risks resulting from these changes such as floods, droughts and extreme temperatures (intensification of the urban island heat effect), render residents of cities vulnerable to these changes. Green infrastructure by providing a range of ecosystem services has a significant role to play in helping to combat climate change. In this paper, it is investigated how and in what function and services, Green infrastructure strategy can help us in adopting to climate change in urban landscape context. At the first step, we classified the methods, principle and impacts on these two strategies (climate change adaptation and green infrastructure) to compare them. Then through this comparison, a conceptual model is developed clarifying their complementarity and relationship.

Systematic Review of Flood and Drought Literature Based on Science Mapping and Content Analysis

“…During the second decade of this century, water resource management has seen a shift from controlling flood and drought hazards towards managing risk [10] using coping mechanisms, urban adaptation, mitigating exposure and socioeconomic strategies. For instance, rapid drought-flood alternations in Missouri, 2002-2007, and California, 2011-2017, have placed a large amount of stress on water resource management plans [17].…”

“…Explaining and quantifying flood and drought issues together represents a complex yet challenging area of research [17] and requires implicating various methods and indices. The literature on analyzing flood and drought issues discusses different perspectives ranging from water resources [18][19][20], to climate change [21][22][23][24][25][26][27], urban and landscape planning [15,28,29], ecology [30][31][32][33] socio-economy [34][35][36], policymaking [37,38], water quality [39,40] and even abrupt alternation/coexistence [41].…”

Suitability Analysis and Planning of Green Infrastructure in Montevideo, Uruguay

“…There is increasing evidence of the benefits that nature provides for human environments [12][13][14][15]. The application of green infrastructure (GI) in urban planning provides the opportunity to design cities and urban areas as living systems that are more connected with nature, creating healthier, resilient and sustainable urban environments [16][17][18][19]. GI and its application in spatial planning is recognized as a successful strategy to support resilience in many cities around the world [18].…”

“…These principles can be combined in diverse ways to respond to particular challenges that different regions may face [24]. In addition, the flexibility and diversity of UGI components allow different combinations to be tailored for different local contexts, spatial levels and issues, resulting in a potential adaptation strategy for planning resilient urban areas [16,17,25]. UGI contributes to the adaptation of urban areas towards the impacts of climate change because of its capacity to: retain, store and reuse water later, reducing stormwater runoff and floods; increase permeable surfaces; regulate local temperature; improve water quality; increase buildings efficiency; and provide new habitats for species [8,28].…”

“…UGI contributes to the adaptation of urban areas towards the impacts of climate change because of its capacity to: retain, store and reuse water later, reducing stormwater runoff and floods; increase permeable surfaces; regulate local temperature; improve water quality; increase buildings efficiency; and provide new habitats for species [8,28]. UGI is a potential tool to be used as an adaptation strategy for planning and designing resilient urban areas to combat the impacts of climate change [16,17].…”