Green Infrastructure for Urban Flood Resilience: A Review of Recent Literature on Bibliometrics, Methodologies, and Typologies

Abstract

Urban flood resilience can critically diminish the negative effects of extreme climatic conditions. In recent decades, green infrastructure has been gaining attention among researchers and authorities in terms of its use in urban contexts to enhance urban resilience. This paper tries to provide knowledge on how urban flood resilience has been recently approached through green infrastructure. To do this, the distribution of the topics of interest, authors, and sources/regions of publication are investigated through a systematic review of recent articles. Additionally, the methodological approaches and green infrastructure typologies are examined. Findings show an agglomeration of publications in developed countries. It was also observed that there is a predominance of quantitative methodological approaches and a low connectivity for some hot topics within this field of research (e.g., biodiversity). The most common green infrastructure typologies used in urban flood resilience research are also discussed. It is noticeable that more than half of the papers used general terms (e.g., urban park/open space) to describe green infrastructure rather than using technical typologies providing more information on water flow management characteristics. The outcomes are discussed to give an overview of the latest hotspots and gaps in this field of research, which gives some future directions/expectations to be followed in forthcoming investigations.

Characterizing the level of urban Flood vulnerability using the social-ecological-technological systems framework, the case of Adama city, Ethiopia

“…This poses a hindrance to infiltration processes and exacerbates runoff. These findings further support a previous study, conducted by Khodadad, Aguilar-Barajas [ 86 ] and Pallathadka, Sauer [ 85 ], which highlights the crucial role of green infrastructure in mitigating an area's vulnerability to flooding through its ability to enhance infiltration and reduce runoff. The consistency between these studies reinforces the significance of incorporating green infrastructure as a means to alleviate flood-related risks in urban environments.…”

“…This resulting GI density map was also resampled and classified in the same manner as that of the road density map. Green infrastructure reduces the vulnerability of an area to flooding by increasing infiltration and reducing runoff [ 85 , 86 ].…”

Addressing Local Water Security through Green Infrastructure Implementation: A Review of Urban Plans in Monterrey, Mexico, and Brussels, Belgium

“…Consequently, an ample use of 'general' classifications is seen in plans, which is associated with some challenges. Although the wide-ranging benefits of these 'general' GIs are well known, according to Khodadad et al [76], the vast usage of these general classifications to define GI could bring possible biases to the related implementation/analysis outcomes, because it restricts the depth of knowledge regarding the particular features of the GI. In this regard, Jones et al [77] (p. 2) state that "ideally, a [GI] typology should be .…”

“…On the other hand, each of the 'rain garden' and 'green/vegetated wall' types was used only once, followed by two usages for the 'swale' and 'vegetated raft' categories. The compatibility of modeling to determine GIs' ecosystem services, benefits, and effects, including their capacity for WS management, is limited by the use of general and broad terms to identify GI types [76]. Therefore, when possible, using more specific categories and terms to describe GI in WS research is advised [76].…”

“…The compatibility of modeling to determine GIs' ecosystem services, benefits, and effects, including their capacity for WS management, is limited by the use of general and broad terms to identify GI types [76]. Therefore, when possible, using more specific categories and terms to describe GI in WS research is advised [76]. While this approach has limitations in terms of effectively describing the multifunctionality of GI (such as social and aesthetic representations) [78], these limitations might be overcome by utilizing technical terminology that is also informative [76].…”