Using green infrastructure to stimulate discourse with and for planning practice: experiences with fuzzy concepts from a pan-European, a national and a local perspective

Abstract

Concepts such as green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and ecosystem services gained popularity in recent discourses on urban planning. Despite their recognition as innovative concepts, all of them share a degree of ambiguity. Fuzziness can be a weakness but also an opportunity to shape novel concepts together with the stakeholders that are supposed to implement them in the planning practice. The paper traces concept development processes of green infrastructure through transdisciplinary knowledge exchange in three different projects, a European and a national research project and a local city-regional project as part of an EU regional cooperation project. In all projects, the green infrastructure concept evolved in different stages. Stakeholder involvement during these stages span from consultation to co-creation. The cases reveal two different approaches: concepts that are developed “for planning practice” might be based on a plethora of insight via consultation, while those “with planning practice” foster co-creation and might result in high acceptance among the involved stakeholders. Depending on the purpose of the novel concept, each approach can be beneficial and result in practice-related and operational products, such as guidance documents or planning strategies. However, the cases also show that in any new context an exchange about fuzzy concepts is not only needed but also a chance to stimulate cooperation and joint understanding about urban challenges and how to address them.

From Intention to Implementation of Vertical Green: The Case of Ljubljana

“…Despite their recognition as emerging, innovative, and complementary approaches, all of them share a degree of ambiguity or even knowledge gaps in the closely linked diverse circles (science, policy, and planning), disciplines, and interested actors. In practice, they often overlap with other already established and regularly used approaches to green space or landscape planning in urban and non-urban environments [14,24], which pursue the same or similar goals of ensuring conditions for sustainable development, climate resilience [25,26] and quality of life and environment.…”

“…Vertical greenery systems (VGS) constitute a "promising contemporary green infrastructure element which contribute to the provision of several ecosystem services both at building and urban scales" [6]. Further, NbS have a number of beneficial impacts on the urban environment [7]: they help lower building façade temperatures in the summer, e.g., via passive cooling, and thus lower the effect of thermal heat islands [8][9][10], reduce surface water runoff [11], reduce noise by absorbing sound [6,12], and improve biodiversity [13] as well as improve the aesthetics and perception of urban open spaces [14,15]. This article is based on the hypothesis that the viewpoints of the decision-makers and key stakeholders, the legislation, and the planning framework in the current situation of Ljubljana have some drawbacks that contribute to the lesser implementation of VG in the city than in other European capitals.…”

“…The workshop participants were not the same as interviewees (with one exception); they were chosen for their operational and executive roles in their respective departments. Accordingly, 14 The workshop consisted of two parts. The first part aimed at presenting in detail the potential and possibilities of green walls in urban areas.…”

Between vision and action: the predicted effects of co-designed green infrastructure solutions on environmental burdens

“…The transdisciplinary process helped to combine unrelated knowledge with regard to a specific task by developing a strategic focus on reducing environmental burdens in a deprived neighborhood. Due to the heterogenous spectrum of the workshop participants and the mixed working groups, decisions on GI measure placement were not dominated by a certain stakeholder group, which cannot be taken for granted regarding other transdisciplinary approaches (Hansen et al 2021). For society, the microclimate simulation results could be utilized as an empirically validated public resource, which provides informative environmental data for complex real-world problems.…”

Conceptualizing Human–Nature Interactions – An Overview

“…This definition is based on the idea of consciously integrating the protection and the enhancement of natural processes into spatial planning and territorial development. As a general concept, however, GI dates back to the 1990s when it was introduced to overcome the different rationales and interests in the scientific, policy, and planning communities dealing with urban environments (Hansen et al, 2021).…”