Green infrastructure for urban resilience: a trait‐based framework

Abstract

I ncreasing societal impacts of climate change -including heat stress, flooding, disease outbreaks, and food supply shocks, among other disruptive factors -have made planning for urban resilience a priority (Revi et al. 2014). Like all human communities, urban areas are social-ecological systems (SES), composed of humans and their social capital (eg networks, institutions, norms), built capital (eg buildings, equipment, products), and natural capital (natural biophysical factors) (Costanza et al. 2012). We consider urban resilience to be an urban area's capacity to sustain functioning and well-being in response to disturbance, including the ability for its socialecological subsystems to buffer, adapt, or transform (Davidson et al. 2016). This definition reflects convergence in the resilience literature toward social-ecological resilience and its more dynamic and evolutionary themes (Davidson et al. 2016).Urban areas around the world are seeking to promote resilience to climate change through green infrastructure (Demuzere et al. 2014), which refers to networks of greenspaces managed for their benefits (Benedict and McMahon 2006;Allen 2012). From curbside gardens to green roofs, urban green infrastructure (UGI) encompasses diverse scales and forms and provides numerous ecosystem services valued at billions of dollars per year, including flood control, cooling, food production, and mitigation of air and water pollution (Gómez-Baggethun and Barton 2013). In addition, UGI can profoundly impact social capital by providing spaces for socializing, relaxation, and recreation, and through varied education and economic opportunities, among other cultural ecosystem services (Lovell and Taylor 2013). Green infrastructure runs largely on solar energy captured by photosynthesis, typically making it less polluting and more carbon neutral than human-built "gray infrastructure", which is often powered by combustion of fossil fuels. These qualities of UGI can contribute to more sustainable, carbon-conserving systems. What qualities of UGI promote resilience of urban SES?We reason that UGI contributes to urban resilience through traits (ie surrogates; Carpenter et al. 2005) that support properties (ie buffering, adaptability, transformability) of resilient systems (Darnhofer et al. 2016). To identify such traits, we conducted literature searches using Google Scholar and keywords such as "social-ecological system resilience", "complex adaptive system resilience", and "urban resilience". Within this literature, we focused on publications that sought first principles of resilience through traits relating to system structure or reproducibility. A handful of such traits -diversity, redundancy,

Spatio-Temporal Evolution of City Resilience in the Yangtze River Delta, China, from the Perspective of Statistics

“…where G w is the difference contribution within a region, G nb is the difference contribution rate between regions, and G t is the contribution of super-variable density. The calculation formulae are (15), (17), and (18).…”

“…Zhejiang Hangzhou (15), Ningbo (16), Jiaxing (17), Huzhou (18), Shaoshing (19), Jinhua (20), Zhoushan (21), Taizhou (22), Wenzhou (23), Quzhou (24), Lishui…”

“…From 2010 to 2015, the difference of the resilience levels of cities in the eastern sub-region increased, while they shrank between 2015 and 2020. Nanjing (2), Wuxi (3), Changzhou (4), Suzhou (5), Nantong (6), Yancheng (7), Yangzhou (8), Zhejian Taizhou (10), Lianyungang (11), Huai'an (12), Suqian (13), Xuzhou (14) g Hangzhou (15), Ningbo (16), Jiaxing (17), Huzhou (18), Shaoshing (19), Jinhua (20), Zhoushan (21), zhou (22), Wenzhou (23), Quzhou (24), Lishui ( 25) Hefei (26), Fuyang (27), Chuzhou (28), Wuhu (29), Xuancheng (30), Tongling (31), Chizhou (32), An During the study period, the overall Gini coefficient of city resilience in the Y River Delta fluctuated and decreased (Figure 4). From the perspective of the sub-r Gini coefficient, the western sub-region exhibited the highest Gini coefficient dur study period.…”

“…However, with the intensifying focus from different disciplines on city resilience, its connotations have gradually evolved from diversified and interdisciplinary perspectives to encompass economics, sociology, geography, urban planning, etc. Consequently, city resilience has been enriched and embodied as urban economic [11], social [12], institutional [13], ecological [14], and infrastructure resilience [15].…”

A traits-based approach to assess aquaculture’s contributions to food, climate change, and biodiversity goals

“…Future studies can employ a social-ecological systems (SES) approach to ensure the biological potential of aquaculture matches with existing social needs and assets (e.g., licensing infrastructure, regulations, market, training programs, etc.) 96 . Developing a framework to incorporate social-ecological traits into the evaluation of aquaculture’s FCB potential should be a priority, as it is currently lacking.…”