Green infrastructure as a climate change adaptation policy intervention: Muddying the waters or clearing a path to a more secure future?

Abstract

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.

Green Infrastructure Contribution for Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Landscape Context

“…Mitigation and adaptation are two main policies being contrived in dealing with climate change. The main goal of mitigating strategies through stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration is preventing dangerous interference with climate system (Sussams et al, 2015). Adaptation is defined as adjustment in natural or humane systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects strategies that moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities (IPCC, 2013).…”

Green infrastructure for urban climate adaptation: How do residents’ views on climate impacts and green infrastructure shape adaptation preferences?

“…Silvertown, 2015), a majority of publications stresses the diversity of benefits provided by GI (Andersson et al, 2014;Hansen & Pauleit, 2014). Shortcomings of multiple benefit approaches are that such approaches do not always consider synergies and trade-offs among GI benefits or fail to assess GI values for different urban contexts (Sussams, Sheate, & Eales, 2015). As a result, prioritization of GI designs and their respective benefits becomes complicated, but is urgent given climate change impacts.…”

Projetos ambientais corporativos: do gerenciamento ao sucesso

“…A média global da temperatura na superfície da Terra apresentou um aquecimento de cerca de A estratégia a ser adotada para mitigar riscos das mudanças climáticas é reduzir as emissões de GEE, mas também tomar medidas para adaptação às novas realidades climáticas (IPCC, 2014;Stern, 2006;Sussams, Sheate, & Eales, 2015), promover a redução dos custos de mitigação e desenvolver caminhos para o desenvolvimento sustentável que sejam resilientes às mudanças climáticas (IPCC, 2014).…”

“…Por um lado, essa característica é positiva, pois traz diversos benefícios com somente um investimento exatamente em época na qual as questões ambientais decaíram na agenda política em função da conjuntura econômica. Por outro lado, é uma característica negativa, visto que exige estrutura de governança complexa para gerenciar múltiplos objetivos (Sussams et al, 2015 …”

“…Já a pontuação média na questão 9b evidencia o papel do GP em gerar valor (Patanakul & Shenhar, 2012), propiciando múltiplos benefícios para as organizações (Sussams et al, 2015).…”