Urban Green Infrastructure

Urban green infrastructure (UGI) has the potential to address a wide range of challenges associated with rapidly growing cities in a changing climate, while also providing multiple environmental, economic and social benefits. However, the location of projects is often determined according to a single potential benefit rather than a set of benefits. Furthermore, while UGI is recognized as a successful strategy to support resilience in many cities around the world, it has not been implemented in Uruguay. This study develops a model to identify priority areas in need of green infrastructure in Montevideo, Uruguay. The GIS-based model, termed the “Green Infrastructure Suitability Model” (GISM) is based on a multi-criteria decision analysis approach and is similar in structure to land suitability analysis. The model considers a range of socioeconomic, biophysical and environmental factors to prioritize the need for UGI across the case-study region. Resulting suitability maps identify are...

A presentation to a 1-day conference at Malahide Castle hosted by Fingal County Counci's Parks and Landscape Services and organised by the Irish Landscape Institute. The paper explores the benefits of urban G.I, its usefulness and applicability to the GDA and how we might make progress towards a regional Strategy.

Due to their authentic urban and architectural character, the Medinas of Tunis and Marrakesh became listed among the United Nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization (UNESCO) heritage sites in 1979 and 1985, respectively. Nowadays, the urbanization of the surrounding green areas and the climate change impacts on cities are degrading the Medinas’ livability and their characteristic heritage. On the other hand, scientific knowledge and data about the green system in the dense urban cores of Medinas in the Maghreb region is still not a widely apprehended theme in the scientific domain. This research objective is to initiate nature-based and sustainable solutions in these cities by demonstrating the application of the urban green infrastructure (UGI) approach. As a research methodology, an analysis of the historical green system development in the Medinas is given to highlight their tangible and intangible values. The analysis goes over three periods: first, the
medieval Islamic era, then the modern period during the French colony, and the contemporary city as a unique urban landscape. Finally, the study proposes a design guideline to prove the applicability of the UGI in the given historical morphologies by implementing the retained historical values of the historic green heritage in Medinas and the aspects of the site.

Green infrastructure (GI) stands for a highly actual issue that is an object of interest of the European Commission and one of the key tools of the strategic plan Europe 2020 that aims at achievement of an intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth in the EU. Research into GI has already now a global dimension and it has a tendency towards further development and deepening. The interest of the public and the EU authorities in GI continually grows directly related to the raising awareness of all contributions and benefits of GI solutions. Within our research, we focus on GI of rural settlements as it represents an efficient tool for protection and design of sustainable landscapes. In this contribution, we deal with GI protection and design of landscape and settlement structures. We introduce urban agriculture as a significant GI component in rural settlements.