Stakeholder Participation in North-West Europe: Lessons Learnt from Green Infrastructure Case Studies

Participation and governance approaches gain more relevance to improve the quality, acceptance and legitimization of planning and implementation. There is a need for strategies that unite public, private, scientific and community sector stakeholders for working jointly on innovative, sustainable solutions. This is especially important as local authorities are facing significant cuts with relation to staff and finance. Thus, considering and embedding stakeholders’ input is becoming increasingly difficult, while it is at the same time becoming more and more relevant to give all groups of society the opportunity to have a say in planning to ensure that it meets their requirements and is carried out most effectively. Increased efficacy in participation is highly needed under the given circumstances and only achievable by advancing planners` understanding with local stakeholders’ expertise (Mackrodt & Helbrecht, 2013; Young & McPherson, 2013; Faehnle et al., 2014). In Europe there is not one sole planning system and thus, participation is carried out differently with regard to the planning culture in each country. The international focus is very important as many parallel approaches to participation in different countries need to be taken into account within the context of their respective planning culture. Furthermore, as participation is still an ongoing process and in development in theory and in practice always new aspects and methods appear, it is getting more and more complex, but needs always to be adapted context-wise. So, to learn from best practices in other countries, it is important to keep the planning backgrounds in mind when transferring promising approaches from other national contexts. One of the most relevant planning topics in this sense is green infrastructure, “defined as a strategically planned network of high quality natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features, which is designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services and protect biodiversity in both rural and urban settings” (EU Commission, 2013:7). Strategic approaches for green infrastructure are still rare and institutionalization efforts of environmental or “green” governance are underdeveloped. However, in the case of GI planning stakeholders’ preferences and values regarding their environment are valuable information for decision making and their integration in green infrastructure planning is hugely relevant as green infrastructure`s multiple benefits for society are not rewarded enough. The consideration of adequate stakeholders at the right phases of green infrastructure planning processes and the choice of suitable participation tools are essential for a sufficient provision of public resources (Luyet et al. 2012). This paper investigates examples of different green infrastructure case studies in Belgium, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands and evaluates their participation concepts considering the case studies` planning families. Thus, country and planning family similarities and differences related to participation in green infrastructure investments are identified and explained with the evolved planning culture in each country. By this means, we want to highlight the relevance of the planning-cultural context for efficient participation related to the example of green infrastructure. To address the need for more effective participation we illustrate GI stakeholders` views on the projects` participation concepts. This means that a key element in our investigation is to look at the difference between participation desired by stakeholders and the opportunities offered by local administration

Strategic green infrastructure planning in Germany and the UK: a transnational evaluation of the evolution of urban greening policy and practice

The evolution of Green Infrastructure (GI) planning has varied dramatically between nations. Although a grounded set of principles are recognized globally, there is increasing variance in how these are implemented at a national and sub-national level. To investigate this the following paper presents an evaluation of how green infrastructure has been planned for in England and Germany illustrating how national policy structures facilitate variance in application. Adopting an evaluative framework linked to the identification of GI, its development and monitoring/ feedback the paper questions the impacts on delivery of intersecting factors including terminology, spatial distribution and functionality on effective GI investment. This process reviews how changing policy structures have influenced the framing of green infrastructure policy, and subsequent impact this has on the delivery of green infrastructure projects

Das Potenzial von ökonomischer Bewertung und Partizipation für die Planung grüner Infrastruktur

Green and open spaces are important components of green infrastructure. They offer a range of different ecosystem services society benefits from. Due to ongoing urbanisation and densification processes many urban and peri-urban green and open spaces disappear or degrade in quantity and quality, with negative impact on their ecosystems. The decline of the ecological functions of nature and landscape also weakens their social and economic merits, which are especially important for society. Hence, society strongly depends on eco-system services provided by healthy ecosystems. As a consequence of sprawl and land consumption people are increasingly losing contact with and knowledge about nature. Although there is generally support for the development of green and open areas in society, this is an alarming trend as society`s relation to nature is essential. How-ever, especially in cities space is limited and the pressure for development is high resulting in a competition between green and grey infrastructure, which green infrastructure is rarely able to win. Thus, investment in green and open areas is low in most cities and public needs are often neglected as investments are mainly driven by economic interests. However, public needs and local stakeholders‘ knowledge are relevant factors in planning as a majority of green infrastructure components are public spaces. Society as a whole benefits from their ecosystem services. The need to demonstrate the advantages of investments in green and open spaces is therefore high. It is also important to extend the knowledge about the services of nature in society and to pay more attention to the existing local knowledge about green infrastructure. By this means, aforementioned problems could be addressed sustainably through direct engagement of local communities. This doctoral thesis focusses on the concepts of green infrastructure and ecosystem services. For the author both concepts are closely interrelated. Based on this understanding the potential of economic valuation and participation to generate ecosystem knowledge for the support of green infrastructure planning is examined with the aid of empirical studies. Their key parts were published in four journal articles by the author and the particular co-authors. The thesis outlines and discusses the main findings from case studies in Belgium, England, Germany and the Netherlands, which were conceptualised and conducted by the author between 2009 and 2015. The published results show the potential of quantitative and qualitative information about ecosystem benefits deliverable by participation and economic valuation. The work indicates that both approaches are suited to generate different types of ecosystem knowledge by directly involving users and beneficiaries of green infrastructure and its ecosystem services. These means allow increasing the awareness of both issues in planning, politics and civil society and allow green infrastructure in general to gain in importance. This thesis is a contribution to the ongoing discussion about the green infrastructure approach and the ecosystem service concept and their application in planning practice.Grün- und Freiflächen sind wesentliche Bestandteile der grünen Infrastruktur. Sie bieten Raum für unterschiedlichste Ökosysteme und stiften so über die Bereitstellung von Ökosystemleistungen Nutzen für die Gesellschaft. Durch die zunehmende Urbanisierung und Zersiedelung gehen aber urbane und peri-urbane Grün- und Freiflächen verloren oder werden in ihrer Qualität gemindert, was sich nachteilig auf ökosystemare Zusammenhänge auswirkt. Durch die Einschränkung der ökologischen Funktionen von Natur und Landschaft leiden auch die sozialen und ökonomischen Leistungen, die den Menschen zugutekommen. Die menschliche Gesellschaft ist somit in hohem Maße von den Ökosystemleistungen intakter Ökosysteme abhängig. Der Mensch verliert durch Zersiedelung und Versiegelung zunehmend den Kontakt zu und das Wissen über die Natur. Letzteres ist trotz der grundsätzlich in der Gesellschaft vorhandenen breiten Unterstützung für die Entwicklung von Komponenten der grünen Infrastruktur, wie Grün- und Freiflächen, essenziell. Besonders in Städten, in welchen ein hoher Nutzungsdruck auf das limitierte Gut ‘Fläche‘ herrscht, konkurriert grüne mit grauer Infrastruktur. Da häufig wirtschaftliche Interessen überwiegen, sind die Investitionen in Grün- und Freiflächen in den meisten Städten relativ niedrig und die Bedürfnisse der Öffentlichkeit werden wenig berücksichtigt. Diese Bedürfnisse und die Kenntnisse der lokalen Akteure sind jedoch relevante Planungsgrößen, da viele Komponenten der grünen Infrastruktur öffentliche Flächen sind, von deren Ökosystemleistungen ein Großteil der Gesellschaft profitiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund besteht Handlungsbedarf dahingehend, Vorteile von Investitionen in Grün- und Freiflächen aufzuzeigen. Gleichzeitig gilt es, das gesellschaftliche Wissen über die Leistungen der Natur zu vergrößern beziehungsweise das vorhandene lokale Wissen der Bevölkerung über grüne Infrastruktur stärker zu berücksichtigen. So könnten die genannten Probleme auf nachhaltige Weise angegangen werden und die lokale Bevölkerung als direkter Adressat partizipieren. Die vorliegende Dissertation rückt die Konzepte der Grünen Infrastruktur und der Ökosystemleistungen in den Fokus der Betrachtung. Beide werden als unmittelbar miteinander verknüpft verstanden. Auf dieser Grundlage wird das Potenzial von ökonomischer Bewertung und Partizipation zur Generierung von Ökosystemwissen für die Planung von grüner Infrastruktur untersucht. Dies geschieht mit Hilfe empirischer Studien aus vier Aufsatzpublikationen des Autors (und seiner Mitautoren). Es werden die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse aus Fallstudien, die im Zeitraum von 2009 bis 2015 in Belgien, Deutschland, Großbritannien und den Niederlanden vom Autor mitkonzipiert und begleitet wurden, dargestellt und zusammengeführt. Dabei tragen die publikationsbasierten Ergebnisse dazu bei, Möglichkeiten aufzuzeigen, wie mittels Partizipation und ökonomischer Bewertung relevante quantitative und qualitative Informationen über den Nutzen von Ökosystemen bereitgestellt werden können. Beide Ansätze eignen sich (gemeinsam) dazu, unterschiedliche Arten von Ökosystemwissen über die direkte Einbeziehung der Nutzer und Profiteure von grüner Infrastruktur und ihrer Ökosystemleistungen zu generieren. Dies erlaubt es, das Bewusstsein für grüne Infrastruktur und seine Ökosystemleistungen in Planung, Politik und Zivilgesellschaft zu schärfen und beide Konzepte damit in der Breite zu stärken. Die Arbeit versteht sich somit als Beitrag zur aktuellen Diskussion um die Anwendung der Konzepte der Grünen Infrastruktur und der Ökosystemleistungen in der Planungspraxis