Deberes de los interesados

Photographer: Annemie Wyckmans

SectionIV

Greenandblueinfrastructuresasenablersofresilientcities

Annemie Wyckmans¹

1 Department of Architectural Design, History and Technology, Faculty of Architecture and Fine Art, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway. [email protected].

This Section examines the role of green and blue infrastructures (GUI) in resilient cities. Green and blue infrastructures are widely credited for providing an attractive visual environment and valuable ecological habitats. Well-adjusted to environmental and social conditions of a city, their social and environmental co-benefits are emphasized, and their presence lauded for improving citizens’ quality of life. Thus green and blue infrastructures provide an excellent stimulus for thinking about urban integration.

While the topic is gaining ground in policy and governance processes, the definition and implementation of green and blue infrastructures and assessment of their intended and unintended consequences are highly variable. In this section, Giedych et al., explore the way the term and the idea is understood by urban planners, local authorities, local people and other stakeholders is still not clear and differs from country to country and from specialist to specialist. An examination of the strengths and weaknesses of green and blue infrastructures in policy and governance, based on cases in Poland, United Kingdom, Czech Republic and Turkey shows wide variation in terms of quality, monitoring and documentation, and a large potential for improvement. Sculczewska et al.

demonstrate how these variations are partially due to different consequences of climate change in each country, but also different degrees to which the problem has been recognised at the country, regional and local levels of administration.

Tools for design and planning of green and blue infrastructures, such as eco-spatial indices, are available but not commonly used. Gualtieri et al. highlight how it is important to understand and consider all the relationships between the components and agents of the urban metabolism, including the interaction between green, blue and grey infrastructures, and to develop indices and tools that can assess this systemic approach. Indicators and assessment tools are often linked to particular functions only, Demuzere et al. synthesise the evidence of the multi-functionality of green and blue infrastructures in urban areas and to enable decision-makers to fully grasp their potential contribution to climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in cities.

SectionIV1

Greeninfrastructureasatoolofurbanareassustainable

development

Renata Giedych¹, Barbara Szulczewska¹, Stephen Dobson², Lena Halounova³, Hakan Doygun⁴

1 Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW, Faculty of Horticulture, Biotechnology and Landscape Architecture, Department of Landscape Architecture, Poland

2 Sheffield Business School at Sheffield Hallam University, Centre for Individual and Organisational Development

3 Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Republic

4 Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University, Faculty of Forestry, Department of Landscape Architecture, Turkey

Highlights

x Green infrastructure is a complex physical structure forming urban space and performing various functions simultaneously: in biodiversity protection, water management, local climate conditions improvement on one side and as social infrastructure for leisure, relaxation, human interactions on the other.

x Awareness about this multifunctional nature is widely distributed among professionals – urban planners, geographers, landscape architects as well as representatives of cities authorities.

x In all surveyed countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey, United Kingdom) local plans are considered as main instruments of green infrastructure implementation.

x On the basis of legal framework in particular countries and planning documents for analyzed cities we identified that the recognition of functions of potential elements of green infrastructure differ from country to country.

x In general the environmental and recreational functions are emphasized. Less attention is paid to its technical role related to flood control and storm water management.

1 Introduction

The term “Green Infrastructure” began to emerge in the mid-1990s as a means to distinguish between the formal parks and amenity spaces in urban areas and the growing recognition of the value gained from connectivity amongst informal spaces, street trees (McPherson and Peper, 1996), walkways, and incidental urban greening. The concept was not new as Walmsley (1995) reminds us that connectivity between greenways, greenbelts and green spaces were a key component of Howard's vision of town and country. However, the term green “infrastructure”, attributed to a

the Netherlands and associated pressures from population increase and housing need and define a necessity to invest in both green and blue “infrastructures'”.

The concept of green infrastructure is now considered as one of the key ideas of sustainable development at regional and local scale. The way the term and the idea is understood by urban planners, local authorities, local people and other stakeholders is still not clear and differs from country to country and from specialist to specialist.

Based on a review of definitions, Sylwester (2009) distinguishes different meanings of green infrastructure. It could be unserstood as region's life support system; strategically planned and managed networks of natural areas; physical environment within and between our cities, towns and villages; network of multi-functional open spaces; management approaches and technologies; or strategic approach to land conservation.

Nevertheless, because of its potential, importance and crucial role in shaping urban environment by providing ecological services and being a place for everyday recreation it is worth to be transformed into broadly used instrument of urban planning and strategic approach to land conservation which combines land conservation and land use planning (Ahern, 2010, Hostler et al. 2011, Madueira et al.

2011, Sandström, 2009)

The aim of the paper is to examine the state of green infrastructure idea implementation in different planning regimes and governance levels. Four cities: Warsaw (Poland), Gaziantep (Turkey) , Hradec Kralove (Czech Republic) and Sheffield (United Kingdom) were chosen as case studies.