Consider this ... How do we handle the convergence of landscape architecture, ecological planning, and civil engineering? What are convenient terms and metaphors to communicate the interplay between design and ecology? What are suitable scientific theories and technological means? What innovations arise from multidisciplinary and cross-scalar approaches? What are appropriate aesthetic statements and spatial concepts? What instruments and tools should be applied? Revising Green Infrastructure: Concepts Between Nature and Design examines these questions and presents innovative approaches in designing green, landscape or nature as infrastructure from different perspectives and attitudes instead of adding another definition or category of green infrastructure. The editors bring together the work of selected ecologists, engineers, and landscape architects who discuss a variety of theoretical aspects, research projects, teaching methods, and best practice examples in green infrastructure. The approaches range from retrofitting existing infrastructures through landscape-based integrations of new infrastructures and envisioning prospective landscapes as hybrids, machines, or cultural extensions. The book explores a scientific functional approach in landscape architecture. It begins with an overview of green functionalism and includes examples of how new design logics are deducted from ecology in order to meet economic and environmental requirements and open new aesthetic relationships toward nature. The contributors share a decidedly cultural perspective on nature as landscape. Their ecological view emphasizes the individual nature of specific local situations. Building on this foundation, the subsequent chapters present political ideas and programs defining social relations toward nature and their integration in different planning systems as well as their impact on nature and society. They explore different ways of participation and cooperation within cities, regions, and nations. They then describe projects implemented in local contexts to solve concrete problems or remediate malfunctions. These projects illustrate the full scope presented and discussed throughout the book: the use of scientific knowledge, strategic thinking, communication with municipal authorities and local stakeholders, design implementation on site, and documentation and control of feedback and outcome with adequate indicators and metrics. Although diverse and sometimes controversial, the discussion of how nature is regarded in contrast to society, how human-natural systems could be organized, and how nature could be changed, optimized, or designed raises the question of whether there is a new paradigm for the design of social relations to nature. The multidisciplinary review in this book brings together discussions previously held only within the respective disciplines, and demonstrates how they can be used to develop new methods and remediation strategies.

This edited volume examines how to develop a planning and design process with green infrastructure that creates technical answers to the social and ecological function of the city’s climate change adaptations demands. In this context, it proposes a process that engage the values linked to the art and culture of the place, capable of generating adoption by the population and promoting the right to landscape. Since the nineteenth century, many theoretical and practical experiences have integrated urban and environmental issues, revising the understanding of nature as an object and thinking of nature and culture in conjunction. However, consensus of the methodological strategies needed to guide the development of multi-scale landscape planning and design capable of responding to the climate emergency, heritage, water, biodiversity and social inclusion, among other issues has not been achieved. Green infrastructure has emerged as a tool to link considerations of the planning and design process to examine the impact urban nature can have at a global and a local scale. The book gathers together authors from different parts of the world and disciplines to showcase conceptual thinking, best practices and methodological strategies relating to landscape planning and design with green infrastructure adapted to climate change. The topic of this book is particularly relevant to scholars, practitioners and developers around the world who have an interest in planning and environmental management, landscape architecture, and socio-cultural understandings of landscape.

Our understandings of the landscapes around us are constantly changing. How we interact with, manage and value these spaces is important, as it helps us to ensure we live in attractive, functional and sustainable places. Green Infrastructure planning is the current ‘go-to’ approach in landscape planning that incorporates human-environmental interactions, understandings of ecology and how socio-cultural factors influence our use of parks, gardens and waterways. This book explores several interpretations of Green Infrastructure bringing together case studies of policy, practice, ecological change and community understandings of landscape. Focusing on how planning policy shapes our interactions with the landscape, as individuals and communities, the book discusses what works and what needs to be improved. It examines how environmental management can promote more sustainable approaches to landscape protection ensuring that water resources and ecological communities are not harmed by development. It also asks what the economic and community values of Green Infrastructure are to illustrate how different social, ecological and political factors influence how our landscapes are managed. The central message of the book focusses on the promotion of multi-functional nature within urban landscapes that helps people, the economy and the environment to meet the challenges of population, infrastructure and economic change. The chapters in this book were origianally published as a special issue in Landscape Research.

The aim of this book is to bring together multidisciplinary research in the field of green infrastructure design, construction and ecology. The main core of the volume is constituted by contributions dealing with green infrastructure, vegetation science, nature-based solutions and sustainable urban development. The green infrastructure and its ecosystem services, indeed, are gaining space in both political agendas and academic research. However, the attention is focused on the services that nature is giving for free to and for human health and survival. What if we start to see things from another perspective? Our actions shall converge for instance to turn man-made environment like cities from heterotrophic to autotrophic ecosystems. From landscape ecology to urban and building design, like bricks of a wall, from the small scale to the bigger landscape scale via ecological networks and corridors, we should start answering these questions: what are the services that are we offering to Nature? What are we improving? How to implement our actions? This book contains three Open Access chapters, which are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Green infrastructure encompasses many features in the built environment. It is widely recognised as a valuable resource in our towns and cities and it is therefore crucial to understand, create, protect and manage this resource. This Handbook sets the context for green infrastructure as a means to make urban environments more resilient, sustainable, liveable and equitable. Including state-of-the-art reviews that summarise the existing knowledge as well as research findings, this Handbook provides current evidence for the beneficial impact of green infrastructure on health, environmental quality and the economy. It discusses the planning and design of green infrastructure as a strategic network down to the individual features in a neighbourhood and looks at the process of green infrastructure implementation, emphasising the importance of collaboration across multiple professions and sectors. This comprehensive volume operates at multiple spatial scales, from strategic networks at the regional level to individual features in neighbourhoods, with international case studies used throughout to illustrate key examples of good practice. This collection of expert contributions will be invaluable to students and academics in the fields of planning, urban studies and geography. Practitioners and policy-makers will also find the policy discussion and examples enlightening.

This book analyses international Green Infrastructure (GI) planning and design strategies. The GI strategy is widely recognized for its multifunctionality (as a tool for ecological, economic and social enhancement) and multiscalarity. Starting from this assumption, the book intends to implement the concept of GI and blue networks in planning strategies and their linked urban projects. New urban and regional paradigms of the latest years, such as urban sprawl, ecosystem services, biodiversity, urban resilience, climate change and health emergencies, have made it necessary to rethink cities and territories and their related plans and projects. To satisfy these paradigms, worldwide plans and projects have started to focus both on short-term and long-term processes and strategies which integrate environmental, landscape and ecological elements. Chapters 1 and 6 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The book analyses the relationship between ecosystem services, green and blue infrastructures (GBI) and spatial planning in Italy. It provides insights on the opportunities and challenges in the adoption of an ecosystem services (ES)-based approach for Spatial Planning exploring methods and techniques for the design of GBI strategies. Nowadays, there is an advance in ES knowledge and a recognition of the benefits of GBI for the quality of human life and biodiversity conservation. The main challenge remains how this knowledge could be integrated into the planning process and how it could guide the decision-making process towards sustainable development for contemporary cities. The book collects innovative Italian experiences providing important considerations for operationalizing the ES concept and highlighting different disciplinary attitudes and methodological approaches with the common goal to enhance human well-being.