Green Infrastructure

Current Debates for Policy, Practice and Implementation

Ian C. Mell

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351359276
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Architettura
• Sous-sujet: Pianificazione urbana e paesaggistica

Our understandings of the landscapes around us are constantly changing. How we interact with, manage and value these spaces is important, as it helps us to ensure we live in attractive, functional and sustainable places. Green Infrastructure planning is the current 'go-to' approach in landscape planning that incorporates human-environmental interactions, understandings of ecology and how socio-cultural factors influence our use of parks, gardens and waterways.

This book explores several interpretations of Green Infrastructure bringing together case studies of policy, practice, ecological change and community understandings of landscape. Focusing on how planning policy shapes our interactions with the landscape, as individuals and communities, the book discusses what works and what needs to be improved. It examines how environmental management can promote more sustainable approaches to landscape protection ensuring that water resources and ecological communities are not harmed by development. It also asks what the economic and community values of Green Infrastructure are to illustrate how different social, ecological and political factors influence how our landscapes are managed.

The central message of the book focusses on the promotion of multi-functional nature within urban landscapes that helps people, the economy and the environment to meet the challenges of population, infrastructure and economic change. The chapters in this book were origianally published as a special issue in Landscape Research.

Green infrastructure: reflections on past, present and future praxis

Introduction

When Lowenthal (1985) talked about the past being a foreign country, he discussed how our perceptions of the landscape were shaped by experience, by socio-cultural actions and by our changing commitment to ideas or causes. Similarly, when Benedict and McMahon (2006) emphasised that Green Infrastructure (GI) was, and is, our life-support system, they were reflecting on the growth of sustainability politics and a subsequent rethinking within the environment sector of how best to manage human–environmental interactions. Both Lowenthal and Benedict and McMahon explored the actions of the past to understand those currently visible in landscape planning. They also identified significant problems in how we deal with the landscapes around us and the impact this has on our ability to manage landscape resources sustainably. Neither offered a fool-proof answer to the questions of how we address this growing debate; Benedict and McMahon did, however, synthesise the ideas of parkways, greenways, environmental management and ecological conservation into a more holistic approach to landscape planning: what we now consider as a ‘GI’ approach.

This special issue of Landscape Research takes this debate as a starting point to examine how planners, academics, practitioners and other stakeholders are utilising GI principles. The special issue call asked the growing GI community to examine whether it was a sufficiently developed concept, what best practice could be identified, and to explain the nuances embedded within its implementation in different locations. Taking an overtly broad approach, the special issue provided scope for papers to address a range of thematic, spatial, innovative and conceptual understandings of GI in praxis. We feel that the papers presented in this special issue successfully achieve this by exploring contemporary understandings of the financial, ecological, policy-practice and scalar uses of GI. This does, however, raise a dilemma that is explored through the research articles and doctoral position papers presented. How has GI developed to meet these challenges? Within this debate, a series of key ideas are presented, which have been established in the academic literature as shaping the ways in which we discuss, value,¹ and utilise GI in alterative geo-political landscapes. The introduction draws together the historical discussions of GI to contextualise the papers presented in this special issue, which go on to explore the versatility of GI as an approach to landscape planning, and as a concept which can, as Benedict and McMahon remark, act as a life support system for human and ecological activities.

Throughout this editorial, and the subsequent papers, the meaning of GI will be broadly framed by the definitions proposed by Benedict and McMahon (2006), Natural England (2009) and more recently the European Commission (2013). Each of these definitions utilises a range of socio-economic and ecological principles, landscape resources, and alternative approaches to landscape planning to frame what GI is, how it should be developed and what benefits it should deliver. The key principles within this process are the promotion of social, economic and environmental benefits within an integrated approach to planning that enables different stakeholders to shape the ways that they develop and manage the landscape. Furthermore, the principles of multi-functionality, connectivity and access to nature, supportive ecological networks, and establishing socio-economic values through awareness raising and stewardship are all presented as essential components of the promotion of GI praxis (Countryside Agency & Groundwork, 2005; Davies, Macfarlane, McGloin, & Roe, 2006; Mell, 2010; Weber, Sloan, & Wolf, 2006; Williamson, 2003).

The timing of the special issue is also apt. It comes almost a decade since GI started to be actively discussed by academics and practitioners² in the UK and USA; the initial discussions of Benedict and McMahon (2006) and Davies et al. (2006) being important milestones. These initial explorations led to the development of a burgeoning literature focussed on the impacts as well as the functionality of GI across the globe. A second reason why this issue of Landscape Research is timely is the growing realisation in government that alternative solutions to climate change and urban expansion are needed if we are to plan our landscapes more sustainably. Such a reposition is becoming increasing visible in the UK, North America and Europe, but also in the expanding economies of the BRICS countries: Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa (Moraes Victor et al., 2004; Schäffler & Swilling, 2012). Landscape planning and management therefore needs to be considered as a global discussion, and one where GI offers a suite of options that can, and have been evidenced to, mitigate climate change, alleviate flood risk, improve public health, and promote economic viability (Gill, Handley, Ennos, & Pauleit, 2007; Mell, Henneberry, Hehl-Lange, & Keskin, 2013; Ulrich, 1984; Weber et al., 2006). The same literature also illustrates that GI can be delivered successfully at a number of scales, and across a range of administrative and ecological boundaries (Davies et al., 2006; Forman, 1995; Kambites & Owen, 2006; Thomas & Littlewood, 2010). This evidence places our understanding and use of GI in a far more established position than it was for those who first strove to develop the concept in the early 2000s.

Over the course of the last decade, there has been year-on-year growth in the discussion and publication of GI research, guidance and policy, of which the authors of several papers in this special issue of Landscape Research have contributed. Research into GI has been varied, and in a sense, highlights the inherent versatility of the concept, which has both supported and hindered its uptake in different locations. The research of the Conservation Fund (Benedict & McMahon, 2006; Lerner & Allen, 2012; Weber & Wolf, 2000) in the USA, and the Community Forest Partnerships (Blackman & Thackray, 2007; Davies et al., 2006) and Natural England (2009) in the UK, and more recently regional landscape administrations in North-West Europe (South Yorkshire Forest Partnership & Sheffield City Council, 2012; Vandermeulen, Verspecht, Vermeire, Van Huylenbroeck, & Gellynck, 2011; Wilker & Rusche, 2013), have all played a significant role in ensuring that positive GI messages are visible within academic/practice debates.

Over the last five years, we have also seen governments engage with these messages: the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have issued memorandums on GI, whilst the UK government mentions GI in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) (Benedict & McMahon, 2006; Department of Communties & Local Government, 2012; EPA, 2014). More recently, the European Commission issued a communique supporting GI (European Commission, 2013), whilst researchers working for the New Zealand government presented a synthesis of GI and its proposed values for planning in that country (Boyle et al., 2013).

Such geographical diversity has enabled GI to develop as a dynamic approach to landscape planning; a process which is reflected in the scope of the discussions presented in this special issue. It has, however, also highlighted the complexity witnessed in many cities and regions in Europe, the USA, and more recently in African (Abbott, 2012) and Asian nations (Merk, Saussier, Staropoli, Slack, & Kim, 2012), where the use of GI has varied in its form and uptake. Variation has been linked directly to the level of understanding and support (political, social and financial) that GI receives from the government and the environmental sector (Siemens, 2011). Whilst this suggests that the uptake of GI at a government level is positive, it has been the promotion of a number of its key principles: multi-functionality, connectivity, ecological networks and integrated approaches to policy-implementation, by a select group of agencies that have driven the transition from policy to practice, for example, England’s Community Forests (cf. Blackman & Thackray, 2007). Such diversity implies that a plurality to GI discussions exists which can be considered to be spatially, temporally and socio-politically constructed (Mell, 2014); dimensions which will be explored within the papers presented in this special issue of Landscape Research.

The three eras of GI: exploration, expansion and consolidation

To frame such a debate, it is necessary, as Lowenthal stated, to understand the past, in this case the historical development of GI as a concept and as an approach to planning. The versatility of GI lies in its synergies between a series of established green space antecedents such as greenways (Little, 1990), the Garden Cities movement (Howard, 2009) and landscape ecology (Jongman & Pungetti, 2004), the key principles of the concept, and the developing consensus between academics, practitioners, delivery agents and policy-makers, each of which has positioned GI as an integrated and cost-effective approach to urban and landscape planning. Although there is a clear line of argument, as discussed by Mell (2010), illustrating how these factors have generated an overarching acknowledgement of what GI is, what it should do, and how it should do it, we can go further and identify three periods of GI development: Exploration (1998³–2008), Expansion (post-2008–2011) and Consolidation (2010–2012 onwards).

GI developed through a process of assimilation and adaption. Its growth utilised the principles outlined in Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities project to embed the notion of connectivity, accessibility and integrated planning at the core of GI praxis (Town & Country Planning Association, 2012a). GI has also embraced the notions of linearity and connectivity across and between landscape (and administrative) boundaries central to greenways planning to promote multi-functional ecological and recreational routes (Ahern, 1995; Fábos, 2004; Little, 1990). Moreover, GI has been influenced by complementary principles identified in the landscape ecology and conservation research (Farina, 2006; Forman, 1995; Weber & Wolf, 2000). Linking these issues is a view that GI should act as a holistic approach that integrates the socio-political and environmental concerns of landscape planning (Dunn, 2007; Natural England & Landuse Consultants, 2009; Young & McPherson, 2013).

The current discussions of GI engage with each of these issues, highlighting how it can be used to address a variety of planning mandates. Furthermore, given the dynamic nature of landscape planning, GI advocates are continuing to evidence the concept to address climatic and demographic change (Goode, 2006), grey/built environment vs. GI (Mell, 2013) debates, and the growing discussion of ecosystem services (Andersson et al., 2014). However, throughout this process there remains a need to understand how discussions of contemporary GI investment are linked to the history of green space planning.

Exploration (1998–2007)

The initial exploration of GI extended Parris Glendening’s call for it to be used to optimise the ways in which we develop, plan and manage our landscapes (President’s Council on Sustainable Development’s, 1999). Although GI terminology was not initially used, this was what was being referred to through a range of synonyms, such as greenway planning or green space management. Benedict and McMahon (2002) published one of the first papers to consider GI using contemporary terminology. By linking its use to the smart conservation movement in North America, they acted as the catalysts for the expansion of debate surrounding GI. From this point onwards research and practitioner reports started to be populated with the term GI, using it to frame conservation discussions at a local and a regional scale (McDonald, Allen, Benedict, & O’Connor, 2005; Weber & Wolf, 2000). Over time, an acceptance of the terminology, and the ways in which it could be applied to landscape planning became increasingly visible (Benedict & McMahon, 2006).

The initial uptake of GI was seen to be steadily engaging European academics and practitioners. Evidence of this process was reported by Sandström (2002), who discussed the value of GI to Swedish planning debates, whilst Beatley (2000) debated comparable principles in his green urbanist assessment of a number of European cities. In the UK, England’s Community Forest Partnerships (2004), and the Country In and Around Towns (CIAT) programmes of the Countryside Agency & Groundwork (2005) helped to focus GI discussions onto a number of key ideas: connectivity, multi-functionality, interrelated and supportive benefits, and a systematic (i.e. strategic) approach to landscape management. Each of these principles was used to shape how the environment sector and local government in England approached the revitalisation of landscapes across rural–urban boundaries. It also laid the ground work for further investigations into site specific applications of GI, based on the growing consensus of what it should deliver (Mell, 2010).

Each subsequent examination of GI extended these initial conceptualisations illustrating where, and how, it could be used as an effective form of landscape and urban planning. Key reference points in this process include Tzoulas et al.’s (2007) whose work reviews the potential health benefits of GI, work that drew on a wealth of further human-environmental research (Maas, Verheij, Groenewegen, de Vries, & Spreeuwenberg, 2006; Pretty et al., 2007; Pretty, Peacock, Sellens, & Griffin, 2005; Town & Country Planning Association, 2012b; Ulrich, 1984). Furthermore, Gill et al.’s (2007) and Goode’s (2006) assessment of GI helped to synthesise its role in adapting of cities to climate change; research that has influenced more recent examinations of the utility of urban greenspace and gree...