Green May Be Nice, but Infrastructure Is Necessary

Elke Mertens, Richard Stiles and Nilgül Karadeniz
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Elke Mertens: Department of Landscape Sciences and Geomatics, Faculty of Landscape Architecture, Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences, 17033 Neubrandenburg, Germany
Richard Stiles: Department of Landscape Architecture, Vienna University of Technology, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Nilgül Karadeniz: Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Agriculture/Ankara University, Ankara 06120, Turkey

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Green infrastructure is presented as a novel and innovative approach in the current environmental planning discourse, but how new is it really? An historical overview of planning ideas in both the urban and the rural contexts indicates that the concept, if not the term, “green infrastructure” has a very long and distinguished pedigree in the field of landscape and open space planning. To determine how far the concept is indeed new, definitions of green infrastructure from the literature are examined. While “green” has long been loosely used as a synonym for natural features and vegetation in the planning context, “infrastructure” is the part of the term which is really novel. Infrastructure is otherwise understood as being either “technical” or “social”, and the common features of these otherwise very different forms are considered in order to gain a better understanding of how they might also relate to a new interpretation of green infrastructure. A number of international case studies of different “green infrastructure” projects are then presented, again to better understand their common features and potential relationship to other infrastructure types. Finally, the necessity to consider green and blue areas together and to take them as seriously as other forms of infrastructure is emphasized. The developing climate and biodiversity crises underline the urgency of implementing a flexible and multifunctional green-blue infrastructure system. This must be carefully integrated into the existing fabric of both urban and rural landscapes and will require an appropriately resourced administration and management system, reflecting its beneficial impacts.

Keywords: green infrastructure; landscape and open space planning; climate change; biodiversity crisis; gray and social infrastructure; green corridor; green infrastructure elements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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