RT Journal Article
T1 Mitigating and adapting to climate change: 												Multi-functional and multi-scale assessment of green urban infrastructure
A1 Demuzere, M.
A1 Orru, K.
A1 Heidrich, O.
A1 Olazabal, E.
A1 Geneletti, D.
A1 Orru, H.
A1 Bhave, A. G.
A1 Mittal, N.
A1 Feliu, E.
A1 Faehnle, M.
AB In order to develop climate resilient urban areas and reduce emissions, several opportunities exist starting from conscious planning and design of green (and blue) spaces in these landscapes. Green urban infrastructure has been regarded as beneficial, e.g. by balancing water flows, providing thermal comfort. This article explores the existing evidence on the contribution of green spaces to climate change mitigation and adaptation services. We suggest a framework of ecosystem services for systematizing the evidence on the provision of bio-physical benefits (e.g. CO2 sequestration) as well as social and psychological benefits (e.g. improved health) that enable coping with (adaptation) or reducing the adverse effects (mitigation) of climate change. The multi-functional and multi-scale nature of green urban infrastructure complicates the categorization of services and benefits, since in reality the interactions between various benefits are manifold and appear on different scales. We will show the relevance of the benefits from green urban infrastructures on three spatial scales (i.e. city, neighborhood and site specific scales). We will further report on co-benefits and trade-offs between the various services indicating that a benefit could in turn be detrimental in relation to other functions. The manuscript identifies avenues for further research on the role of green urban infrastructure, in different types of cities, climates and social contexts. Our systematic understanding of the bio-physical and social processes defining various services allows targeting stressors that may hamper the provision of green urban infrastructure services in individual behavior as well as in wider planning and environmental management in urban areas.
SN 0301-4797
YR 2014
FD 2014-12-15
LK https://hdl.handle.net/11556/4301
UL https://hdl.handle.net/11556/4301
LA eng
NO Demuzere , M , Orru , K , Heidrich , O , Olazabal , E , Geneletti , D , Orru , H , Bhave , A G , Mittal , N , Feliu , E & Faehnle , M 2014 , ' Mitigating and adapting to climate change : Multi-functional and multi-scale assessment of green urban infrastructure ' , Journal of Environmental Management , vol. 146 , pp. 107-115 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.07.025
NO This research collaboration and this paper were made possible through a European Science Foundation funded COST Action network ( TU0902 ) entitled: “Integrated assessment technologies to support the sustainable development of urban areas” M. Demuzere is funded by the Flemish regional government through a contract as a Fund for Scientific Research (FWO) post-doctoral position. M. Faehnle is funded by the Helsinki University Centre for Environment HENVI and the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE in the research program ‘Enhancing Sustainable Urban Development through Ecosystem Services – ENSURE’. K. Orru is supported by Estonian Target Financed Project No SF0170006s08 and H. Orru by Project No SF0180060s09 . We would also like to thank the reviewer(s) for the insightful and useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
DS TECNALIA Publications
RD 26 jul 2024