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Green infrastructure as a climate change adaptation policy intervention:Muddying the waters or clearing a path to a more secure future? AbstractAs dangerous climate change looms, decision-makers are increasingly realising that societies will need to adapt to this threat as well as mitigate against it. Green infrastructure (GI) is increasingly seen as an ideal climate change adaptation policy response. However, with this research the authors identify a number of crucial knowledge gaps within GI and, consequently, call for caution and for a concerted effort to understand the concept and what it can really deliver. GI has risen to prominence in a range of policy areas in large part due to its perceived ability to produce multiple benefits simultaneously, termed 'multifunctionality'. This characteristic strengthens the political appeal of the policy in question at a time when environmental issues have slipped down political agendas.Multifunctionality, however, brings its own set of new challenges that should be evaluated fully before the policy is implemented. This research takes important first steps to developing a critical understanding of what is achievable within GI's capacity. It focuses on one of GI's single objectives, namely climate change adaptation, to focus the analysis of how current obstacles in applying GI's multifunctionality could lead to the ineffective delivery of its objective.By drawing on expert opinion from government officials and representatives from the private, non-government organisation (NGO) and academic sectors, this research questions GI's ability to be effectively 'multifunctional' with an inconsistent definition at its core, deficiencies in its understanding and conflicts within its governance. In light of these observations, the authors then reflect on the judiciousness of applying GI to achieve the other objectives it has also been charged with delivering.

The challenge for implementing an ecosystems approach to environmental decisionmaking processes, such as spatial planning, is to understand the range, nature and amount of ecosystem services currently provided and the potential for such service provision in the future. The ability to spatially represent ecosystems services is a critical element of the evidence base on which to make decisions about how physical space is used most effectively and sustainably, and the way people and activities are distributed at different spatial scales. This paper reports on the outcomes of a research project originally undertaken for the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which developed a methodology for mapping ecosystem services using GIS and readily available, existing land use/land cover datasets. Critical components of the methodology, in order to determine which datasets are appropriate for which services, are network analysis and stakeholder engagement techniques, to define the relevant typology of ecosystem services and ** Corresponding author. . Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com by ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY on 02/02/15. For personal use only.their relationship to land use/land cover types. The methodology was developed and tested successfully in the context of green grid (green infrastructure) networks in a major UK regeneration area, the Thames Gateway, to the east of London, and its potential use in impact assessment further explored through a number of case studies.

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This paper explores the challenges and lessons from recent practice and experience of applying tools such as Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Sustainability Appraisal at the policy level in the UK and Europe. It investigates whether or not these tools have been effective and helped to deliver more sustainable development at the high level of national policy development. The analysis is illustrated by case examples from the UK, such as Eco-towns and Energy Planning. The paper concludes that the current performance by the UK Government in implementing the SEA Directive for national level strategic actions is far from exemplary. At the root of the problem is the poor consideration and evaluation of reasonable alternatives, the fundamentally weak conception of sustainability adopted and the apparent perception that having to undertake an assessment and comply with the SEA Directive is a hurdle, rather than a useful mechanism for helping to deliver better and more sustainable evidence-based policy making.