Understanding barriers to green infrastructure policy and stormwater management in the City of Toronto: a shift from grey to green or policy layering and conversion?

Johns, Carolyn

doi:10.1080/09640568.2018.1496072

Cited by 61 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 39 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…While planting trees in urban s and efficient way to adapt to climate change, it is not a holistic solutio An enormous number of studies have been published on the potential impact of additional urban vegetation on urban temperature, thermal comfort, pollution reduction, and health. For example, Wright [60] and Johns [61] wrote about the resistance and barriers to green infrastructure. Lennon [62] and Mell [63] assessed the future of green infrastructure and the policy gaps that remain in the current planning legislation, while Roe and Mell [64] evaluated the monetary value that green infrastructure can add.…”

Section: Regenerating Neighborhoods and Bringing Nature Back Into The City: The Case For Tree Planting And The Rewilding Of Urban Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growing Biodiverse Urban Futures: Renaturalization and Rewilding as Strategies to Strengthen Urban Resilience

Lehmann

2021

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How are our cities using nature-based solutions to confront the challenges posed by a warming climate, the loss of biodiversity and major resource depletion? This article discusses the opportunities and benefits of applying the concepts of regreening and rewilding of cities. The article engages with key sources and summarizes the background and development of regreening and nature-based solutions and important policies, concerns and perspectives of international and national organizations. It introduces the integration of nature-based solutions (NBS) as a strategy in urban planning with the aim to strengthen urban resilience and to slow down the biodiversity decline. Rewilding areas in cities has become a powerful strategy to bring back butterflies, insects, birds, and wildlife. In contrast to highly managed parks and gardens, these rewilding initiatives are leaving allotted spaces mostly uncultivated and self-regulated. Contact to nature is essential for human existence, urban wellbeing, and good quality of life. Green spaces in cities—big or small—all contribute to the health and wellbeing of residents. However, many cities do not offer residents easy access to green space within the city. Improving the better distribution of and access to green spaces and extending gardens and parks is likely to deliver a large number of benefits, such as: ecosystem services, better water management for enhanced urban flood control, slowing down the biodiversity loss, contributing to food security, and restoring damaged ecosystems. Furthermore, additional green space and NBS help to keep cities cool during heatwaves and improve the urban microclimate. Rewilding has emerged as an important part of new public parks and gardens. The next step is to up-scale citywide climate intervention strategies deployed to keep cities cool. However, as the discussion of this article shows, it is essential that the design of these NBS strategies is fully integrated with other complementary planning interventions and seeks synergies across all sectors.

show abstract

Section: Regenerating Neighborhoods and Bringing Nature Back Into The City: The Case For Tree Planting And The Rewilding Of Urban Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growing Biodiverse Urban Futures: Renaturalization and Rewilding as Strategies to Strengthen Urban Resilience

Lehmann

2021

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…GI has matured significantly as a strategic concept in planning policy and practice at international, national, regional and local levels, leading Jerome, Sinnett, Burgess, Calvert and Mortlock (2019, p. 174) to claim that the "advocacy argument has been won". However, there still remains significant concern at its operationalisation, differing definitional interpretations and perceived importance in planning processes (Johns, 2019;Matthews, Low, & Byrne, 2015;McWilliam, Brown, Eagles, & Seasons, 2015;Mell, 2019;Wright, 2011). Such definitional and operational ambiguities raise a fundamental question as to what good GI policy actually looks like.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our paper addresses this challenge explicitly through the development and application of a GI policy assessment tool that evaluates how well GI policies cover the priority multiple functions that GI performs (Hansen, Olafsson, Alexander, Rall, & Pauliet, 2019: Jerome et al, 2019, together with an assessment of the strength of policy wording (McWilliam et al, 2015). To date, there have been limited assessments of the effectiveness of GI policies in development plans with most attention focussed on planning case studies; albeit with some notable exceptions (Lennon, 2015 (Ireland); (Mell, Allin, Reimer, & Wilker, 2017) (Germany and UK); (Johns, 2019) (USA); (McWilliam et al, 2015) (Canada); (Jerome et al, 2019) (UK)). Here, Roe and Mell (2013, p. 655) highlight the key role played by policy in the delivery of GI, in particular through the "optioneering of GI development".…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite its championing of multifunctionality, it is often researched and implemented from the perspective of a single benefit. For example, in the US, stormwater abatement dominates the GI literature (Johns, 2019;Meerow & Newell, 2017). Furthermore, it fails to recognise the differential spatial and distributional impacts of claimed benefits with losers and winners and the necessary trade-offs and disbenefits that might occur as a result of interventions in specific settings (Andersson et al, 2015;Juntti & Lundy, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

What Does Good Green Infrastructure Planning Policy Look Like? Developing and Testing a Policy Assessment Tool Within Central Scotland UK

Hislop¹,

Scott

Corbett³

2019

Planning Theory & Practice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper develops and tests a new self-assessment policy tool that illuminates the quality of planning policy for green infrastructure (GI). Working with 19 local planning authorities within the UK Central Scotland Green Network area (CSGN), the multi-functional coverage and strength of GI policies in statutory development plans were assessed. The tool was built from fusing two existing but unrelated initiatives addressing GI standards; Building with Nature and Integrating Green Infrastructure (IGI). The results reveal surprising variation across the functional coverage of GI-related policy and strength of associated policy wording, suggesting a significant vulnerability for how GI is mainstreamed in decision-making processes. To address this knowledge exchange deficit, the best performing policies were captured and adapted to inform a suite of model policies with global application. Significantly, the policies champion the different functions performed by GI and stress the need for early and ongoing involvement throughout any development process with funding for long-term stewardship post-development. The results serve as a catalyst for improved dialogue and social learning across planning, and wider built/natural environment teams and professions to plug identified policy gaps. In particular, there is recognition of the need for planning policy responses to move outside their usual environmental remit and engage with other policy sectors using more holistic policy hooks such as placemaking, placekeeping and the climate emergency. We argue that this tool has universal applicability in many planning systems for improving the policy response and imperative for GI, thereby increasing the potential for better spatial planning delivery.

show abstract

“…Integration of land use functions thereby enables greater overall performance and more sustainable development (Lovell and Taylor 2013;Roe and Mell 2013). However, the implementation of such approaches, involving a multitude of stakeholders and high organizational and technological complexity, is challenging (Van Broekhoven and Vernay 2018;Johns 2019;Roe and Mell 2013). Although multifunctional land use (MLU) usually sees wide support during the initial phase, its complexity ensures that only some endeavors are successful.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing boundaries over time in integrative planning processes. A process analysis of boundary work in two cases of multifunctional land use

Broekhoven

Boons²

2021

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Understanding barriers to green infrastructure policy and stormwater management in the City of Toronto: a shift from grey to green or policy layering and conversion?

Cited by 61 publications

References 39 publications

Growing Biodiverse Urban Futures: Renaturalization and Rewilding as Strategies to Strengthen Urban Resilience

Growing Biodiverse Urban Futures: Renaturalization and Rewilding as Strategies to Strengthen Urban Resilience

What Does Good Green Infrastructure Planning Policy Look Like? Developing and Testing a Policy Assessment Tool Within Central Scotland UK

Managing boundaries over time in integrative planning processes. A process analysis of boundary work in two cases of multifunctional land use

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About