Handbook On Green Infrastructure

Green infrastructure encompasses many features in the built environment. It is widely recognised as a valuable resource in our towns and cities and it is therefore crucial to understand, create, protect and manage this resource. This Handbook sets the context for green infrastructure as a means to make urban environments more resilient, sustainable, liveable and equitable. Including state-of-the-art reviews that summarise the existing knowledge as well as research findings, this Handbook provides current evidence for the beneficial impact of green infrastructure on health, environmental quality and the economy. It discusses the planning and design of green infrastructure as a strategic network down to the individual features in a neighbourhood and looks at the process of green infrastructure implementation, emphasising the importance of collaboration across multiple professions and sectors. This comprehensive volume operates at multiple spatial scales, from strategic networks at the regional level to individual features in neighbourhoods, with international case studies used throughout to illustrate key examples of good practice. This collection of expert contributions will be invaluable to students and academics in the fields of planning, urban studies and geography. Practitioners and policy-makers will also find the policy discussion and examples enlightening.

This book addresses the nuts and bolts of planning and preserving natural assets at a variety of scales--from dense urban environments to scenic rural landscapes. A practical guide to creating effective and well-crafted plans and then implementing them, the book presents a six-step process developed and field-tested by the Green Infrastructure Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. Well-organized chapters explain how each step, from setting goals to implementing opportunities, can be applied to a variety of scenarios, customizable to the reader's target geographical location.

With illustrative and detailed examples drawn from throughout the country, Green Infrastructure advances smart land conservation: large scale thinking and integrated action to plan, protect and manage our natural and restored lands. From the individual parcel to the multi-state region, Green Infrastructure helps each of us look at the landscape in relation to the many uses it could serve, for nature and people, and determine which use makes the most sense. In this wide-ranging primer, leading experts in the field provide a detailed how-to for planners, designers, landscape architects, and citizen activists

This open access book introduces the function, implementation and governance of green infrastructure in Japan and other countries where lands are geologically fragile and climatologically susceptible to climate change. It proposes green infrastructure as an adaptation strategy for climate change and biodiversity conservation. In the face of climate change, dams, levees and floodways built as disaster prevention facilities do not sufficiently function against extraordinary events such as mega-floods and tsunami disasters. To prevent those disasters and loss of biodiversity in various ecosystems, we should shift from conventional hard measures to more adaptive strategies using various functions that natural and semi-natural ecosystems provide. Green infrastructure is an interconnected network of waterways, wetlands, woodlands, wildlife habitats and other natural areas that support native species, maintain natural ecological processes, sustain air and water resources and contribute to the health and quality of life for communities and people. Green infrastructure has mainly been discussed from adaptation strategy perspectives in cities and urban areas. However, to protect cities, which are generally situated at downstream lower elevations, we explore the preservation and restoration of forests at headwater basins and wetlands along rivers from a catchment perspective. In addition, the quantitative examination of flood risk, biodiversity, and social-economic benefits described in this book brings new perspectives to the discussion. The aim of this book is to accelerate the transformative changes from gray-based adaptation strategies to green- or hybrid-based strategies to adapt to climate change. The book provides essential information on the structure, function, and maintenance of green infrastructure for scientists, university students, government officers, and practitioners.

There is a growing body of knowledge revealing a sweeping array of connections between public health and green infrastructure – but not until now have the links between them been brought together in one comprehensive book. Green Infrastructure and Public Health provides an overview of current research and theories of the ecological relationships and mechanisms by which the environment influences human health and health behaviour. Covering a broad spectrum of contemporary understanding, Coutts outlines: public health models that explicitly promote the importance of the environment to health ways in which the quality of the landscape is tied to health challenges of maintaining viable landscapes amidst a rapidly changing global environment This book presents the case for fundamental human dependence on the natural environment and creates a bridge between contemporary science on the structure and form of a healthy landscape and the myriad ways that a healthy landscape supports healthy human beings. It presents ideal reading for students and practitioners of landscape architecture, urban design, planning, and health studies.

Consider this ... How do we handle the convergence of landscape architecture, ecological planning, and civil engineering? What are convenient terms and metaphors to communicate the interplay between design and ecology? What are suitable scientific theories and technological means? What innovations arise from multidisciplinary and cross-scalar approaches? What are appropriate aesthetic statements and spatial concepts? What instruments and tools should be applied? Revising Green Infrastructure: Concepts Between Nature and Design examines these questions and presents innovative approaches in designing green, landscape or nature as infrastructure from different perspectives and attitudes instead of adding another definition or category of green infrastructure. The editors bring together the work of selected ecologists, engineers, and landscape architects who discuss a variety of theoretical aspects, research projects, teaching methods, and best practice examples in green infrastructure. The approaches range from retrofitting existing infrastructures through landscape-based integrations of new infrastructures and envisioning prospective landscapes as hybrids, machines, or cultural extensions. The book explores a scientific functional approach in landscape architecture. It begins with an overview of green functionalism and includes examples of how new design logics are deducted from ecology in order to meet economic and environmental requirements and open new aesthetic relationships toward nature. The contributors share a decidedly cultural perspective on nature as landscape. Their ecological view emphasizes the individual nature of specific local situations. Building on this foundation, the subsequent chapters present political ideas and programs defining social relations toward nature and their integration in different planning systems as well as their impact on nature and society. They explore different ways of participation and cooperation within cities, regions, and nations. They then describe projects implemented in local contexts to solve concrete problems or remediate malfunctions. These projects illustrate the full scope presented and discussed throughout the book: the use of scientific knowledge, strategic thinking, communication with municipal authorities and local stakeholders, design implementation on site, and documentation and control of feedback and outcome with adequate indicators and metrics. Although diverse and sometimes controversial, the discussion of how nature is regarded in contrast to society, how human-natural systems could be organized, and how nature could be changed, optimized, or designed raises the question of whether there is a new paradigm for the design of social relations to nature. The multidisciplinary review in this book brings together discussions previously held only within the respective disciplines, and demonstrates how they can be used to develop new methods and remediation strategies.

This book focuses on urban "green infrastructure" – the interconnected web of vegetated spaces like street trees, parks and peri-urban forests that provide essential ecosystem services in cities. The green infrastructure approach embodies the idea that these services, such as storm-water runoff control, pollutant filtration and amenities for outdoor recreation, are just as vital for a modern city as those provided by any other type of infrastructure. Ensuring that these ecosystem services are indeed delivered in an equitable and sustainable way requires knowledge of the physical attributes of trees and urban green spaces, tools for coping with the complex social and cultural dynamics, and an understanding of how these factors can be integrated in better governance practices. By conveying the findings and recommendations of COST Action FP1204 GreenInUrbs, this volume summarizes the collaborative efforts of researchers and practitioners from across Europe to address these challenges.

Over the last decade research exploring green infrastructure planning has burgeoned. Transferable green infrastructure messages between locations though are less well established and there remains a visible gap between the conceptual understanding of green infrastructure and its application in practice. Drawing together evaluations of green infrastructure policy-making and practice from across the world Global Green Infrastructure illustrates where successful practices can be identified. Examples from major green infrastructure development areas in the UK, Europe and the USA highlight the variety of investment options that can deliver socio-economic benefits. There is also a growing awareness of the added value of landscape planning in the rapidly developing cities of India and China. Reflecting on ten international case studies Global Green Infrastructure highlights the ways that ecology and engineered solutions can deliver successful urban development. Based on in situ research with the growing community of green infrastructure researchers and practitioners Global Green Infrastructure looks at the contradictions, consensus, and expanding evidence base of successful investments. This book also presents an in-depth commentary on the contemporary approaches to investment in urban greening and green infrastructure, and draws on the lessons we have learnt from a decade of experimentation, delivery and reflection.