Maximising the Value of Natural Capital in a Changing Climate Through the Integration of Blue-Green Infrastructure

Abstract

Australia's natural capital is under growing cumulative pressure from land use change and intensive agriculture, fishery, forestry, and urban sprawl. This consequently reduces the benefits and services that it provides. This paper firstly assessed how current trends of land-use change have an impact on the natural capital loss in South Victoria, Australia during 2006-2016. Then in order to increase natural capital inherent value and to ensure that natural capital is multifunctional, a system of Blue-Green Infrastructure is designed within the current natural capital of Tarwin Lower, in Victoria. Given that natural capital area is declining in Australia, incorporating designed elements into existing natural capital to create multifunctional natural capital, enables maximising the supply and value of ecosystem services in order to meet the demands of a growing population. Here, three ecosystem services (stormwater abatement, water quality improvement, and water supply services) were compared in terms of existing natural capital or with integrated Blue-Green Infrastructure elements to create multifunctional natural capital system. The results indicate that planning Blue-Green Infrastructure will enhance multiple aspects of regional sustainability and resilience in the Tarwin catchment and will maximise the multifunctionality of the natural capital. Finally, the paper simulates the cost-benefit analysis for the implementation of Blue-Green Infrastructure to show that it is a cost-effective and sustainable solution to cope with the current demographic, economic and agricultural trends, which affect natural capital. This paper confirms that in order to provide ecosystem services for extra demands of growing inhabitants, Blue-Green Infrastructure networks require to be extended in the Victoria State of Australia to compensate natural capital and ecosystem service losses due to the regional and urban development.

Green infrastructure: The future of urban flood risk management?

“…This is partly due to GI delivering multiple social, environmental, and economic benefits and services in conjunction with their primary purpose of flood risk reduction, such as improving water and air quality, creating attractive and aesthetically pleasing social spaces with recognized health benefits, and enhancing species diversity (Fenner, 2017; Hoang et al, 2018; Kattel et al, 2021). A growing number of studies further evaluate, value, and monetize the multiple benefits of GI (e.g., Alves et al, 2019; Ashley et al, 2018; Ghofrani et al, 2020). Nonetheless, multiple benefit valuation is not typically included when making the business case for GI implementation.…”

Climate as an area of strategic intervention in urban development

“…What might be of interest to the field of economics in this respect is the changes in the value system that come with the models of: ecological resilience (Domański, 2012); environmental and ecological economics; sustainable growth (Borys, 2013;Sunkel, 2016;Zaręba, Krzemińska, and Dzikowska 2019); the green economy (Barbier and Markandya 2013;Plac 2019); and green cities (Simpson and Zimmermann, 2013). The factors that are investigated by economists (Broto, 2020;Ghofrani, Sposito, and Faggian, 2020) in line with the smart city concept are energy self-sufficiency, smart construction technologies, infrastructural systems as well as air quality, especially as part of the smart environment concept (Orłowski and Rosińska, 2018). All of these are also elements of urban and climate resilience (Aguiar, Bents, Silva, Fonseca, Swart, Santos, and Penha-Lopes, 2018;Kumar, Deka, and Kumari, 2020;Lorenz, Dessai, Forster, and Paavola, 2017), hybrid development (Drobniak, Jania, and Plac, 2017;Drobniak, 2018) and climate adaptation in urban and regional studies (Kythreotis, Jonas, and Howarth, 2020).…”

The Blue-Green Urban Living Labs of Kuala Lumpur

“…However, the BGI offers a feasible, economical, and valuable option for urban areas to be efficiently planned, designed, and managed. A more recent study shows that proper planning of BGI will enhance multiple aspects of regional sustainability and resilience of the catchment area (Gofhrani, Z. et al 2020).…”