The multifunctionality concept in urban green infrastructure planning: A systematic literature review

Urban green infrastructure is critical for providing a wide range of ecosystem goods and services that benefit the urban population. Past studies have suggested that multifunctionality concerning urban infrastructure services and functions is a prerequisite for targeting effective and impactful urban green infrastructure. Moreover, urban green infrastructure with multiple functions can offer socio-economic and environmental benefits. However, there has been a knowledge gap in the planning literature to elaborate multiple ecosystem functions in urban green infrastructure. In particular, existing methods and approaches are lacking for quantifying and monitoring such ecological services and biodiversity in urban green infrastructures at different spatial scales. Therefore, this research aims to review studies focusing on the multifunctionality concept in urban green infrastructure planning. The study highlights the current status and knowledge gaps through a systematic review. Our analysis revealed that current studies on green infrastructure multifunctionality have focused on five main themes: 1) planning methods for urban green infrastructure, 2) assessment approaches of urban green infrastructure, 3) ecosystem services and their benefits, 4) sustainability and climate adaptation, and 5) urban agriculture. The study found that the five themes are somewhat connected to each other. The study has revealed a knowledge gap regarding incorporating multifunctional green infrastructure in the planning principle. The results suggest at least five critical elements to ensure multiple functions in urban infrastructure. The elements are spatial distribution, optimal distance, integrated network, accessibility, and public participation and engagement. The study further recommends research directions for future analysis on green infrastructure multifunctionality that are critical for urban planning.publishedVersio

Flowscapes:

Flowscapes explores infrastructure as a type of landscape and landscape as a type of infrastructure. The hybridization of the two concepts seeks to redefine infrastructure beyond its strictly utilitarian definition while allowing spatial design to gain operative force in territorial transformation processes. The publication provides perspectives on the subject from design-related disciplines such as architecture, urban design, urban planning, landscape architecture and civil engineering. The book builds upon the multidisciplinary colloquium on landscape infrastructures, that is part of the Flowscapes graduation design studio of Landscape Architecture at the TU Delft.  The authors explore concepts, methods and techniques for design-related research on landscape infrastructures. Their main objective is to engage environmental and societal issues by means of integrative and design-oriented approaches. Through focusing on interdisciplinary design-related research of landscape infrastructures they provide important clues for the development of spatial armatures that can guide urban and rural development and have cultural and civic significance. The geographical context of the papers covers Europe, Africa, Asia and Northern America. All contributions in the book are double blind reviewed by experts in the field

Greenspace Conservation Planning Framework for Urban Regions Based on a Forest Bird-Habitat Relationship Study and the Resilience Thinking

The research involves first conducting a case study of ecological data and applying the results, together with the resilience concept, to the development of a greenspace conservation planning framework for urban regions. The first part of the research investigates the relationship between forest bird abundance and the surrounding landscape characteristics, especially, forest area and its spatial configuration in urban regions at multiple scales. The results are similar for simple and multiple regression analyses across three scales. The percentage of forest cover in a landscape is positively correlated with bird abundance with some thresholds. Overall, the percentage of forest cover in the landscape, contrast-weighted forest edge density, and the similarity of land cover types to forest cover are identified as important for the conservation of the target bird species. The study points to the importance of species-specific habitat requirements even for species with similar life history traits and of maintaining some forest edges and/or edge contrast. The second part of the research involves the development of a landscape planning meta-model and its conceptual application to greenspace conservation planning, integrating the results of the first part. Administrative and planning units are recognized to exist in a nested hierarchy of neighborhood, city, and urban region, just as biodiversity can be conceived in a nested hierarchical organization of genes, populations/species, communities/ecosystems, and landscapes. Resilience thinking, especially the panarchy concept, provides a scientific basis and a metaphorical framework to develop the meta-model, integrating a proposed landscape planning best practice model at each planning scale. Ecological concepts such as response and functional diversity, redundancy, and connectivity across scales are identified as key concepts for conserving and increasing biodiversity and the resilience of an urban region. These concepts are then used in the meta-model to develop the greenspace conservation planning framework. Ecological processes such as pollination and dispersal, as well as social memory and bottom-up social movements---small changes collectively making a large impact at the broader scales as well as these incremental changes gaining momentum as they cascade across scales---are identified as cross-scale processes and dynamics that connect various planning scales in the meta-model

Shifting the Sustainability Paradigm: Co-creating Thriving Living Systems Through Regenerative Development

abstract: Sustainability research and action in communities should be holistic, integrating sociocultural, biogeophysical, and spiritual components and their temporal and spatial dynamics toward the aim of co-creating thriving living systems. Yet scientists and practitioners still struggle with such integration. Regenerative development (RD) offers a way forward. RD focuses on shifting the consciousness and thinking underlying (un)sustainability as well as their manifestation in the physical world, creating increasingly higher levels of health and vitality for all life across scales. However, tools are nascent and relatively insular. Until recently, no empirical scientific research studies had been published on RD processes and outcomes. My dissertation fills this gap in three complementary studies. The first is an integrative review that contextualizes regenerative development within the fields of sustainability, sustainable design and development, and ecology by identifying its conceptual elements and introducing a regenerative landscape development paradigm. The second study integrates complex adaptive systems science, ecology, sustainability, and regenerative development to construct and pilot the first iteration of a holistic sustainable development evaluation tool—the Regenerative Development Evaluation Tool—in two river restoration projects. The third study builds upon the first two, integrating scientific knowledge with existing RD and sustainable community design and development practices and theory to construct and pilot a Regenerative Community Development (RCD) Framework. Results indicate that the RCD Framework and Tools, when used within a regenerative landscape development paradigm, can facilitate: (1) shifts in thinking and development and design outcomes to holistic and regenerative ones; (2) identification of areas where development and design projects can become more regenerative and ways to do so; and (3) identification of factors that potentially facilitate and impede RCD processes. Overall, this research provides a direction and tools for holistic sustainable development as well as foundational studies for further research.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Sustainability 201

Urban-Rural Dependencies and Opportunities to Design Nature-Based Solutions for Resilience in Europe and China

This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this recordData Availability Statement: No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.Interrelationships between urban and rural areas are fundamental for the development and safeguarding of viable future living conditions and quality of life. These areas are not well-delineated or self-sufficient, and existing interrelations may privilege one over the other. Major urban challenges facing China and Europe are related to changes in climate, environment, and to decision-making that makes urban and rural landscapes more susceptible to environmental pressures. Focusing on the six European and Chinese cities and surrounding rural areas, under study in the joint EC and MOST-funded REGREEN project, we examine how nature-based solutions (NBS) may assist in counteracting these pressures. We explore urban-rural dependencies and partnerships regarding NBS that can enhance resilience in Europe and China. We analyse differences between European and Chinese systems of governance, reflecting on the significance of the scale of research needed to understand how NBS provide benefits. We highlight interactions between differently delineated sheds (watershed, airshed, natureshed, and peopleshed), which influence the interrelationships between urban and rural areas. There may be one-way or two-way interdependence, and the impact may be uni or multi-directional. The European and Chinese solutions, exemplified in this article, tackle the nexus of environmental and peoplesheds. We discuss complex human interactions (and how to model them) that may, or may not, lead to viable and equitable partnerships for implementing NBS in cities within Europe and in China.European Union Horizon 2020National Key R&D Program Intergovernmental Cooperation in International Science and Technology Innovation, Ministry of Science and Technology of Chin