Integrating green and blue spaces into our cities: Making it happen

Topics: Impacts and adaptation, Health, Resources and Pollution, Energy and Low-Carbon Futures
Type: Briefing paper
Publication date: July 2019

Download


Summary

Authors: Kathryn Brown, Dr Ana Mijic

View of a building covered in greenery, with a tree next to it, from belowThis briefing paper considers how blue-green infrastructure can improve the overall quality of life in cities, and how a framework that fully takes into account the multiple benefits of blue-green infrastructure can help develop funding schemes for sustainable urban development.

Headlines

  • Blue-green infrastructure has a host of benefits including those for climate change adaptation, mitigation, health and wellbeing, and biodiversity.
  • Despite its importance to people and the environment, blue-green infrastructure is declining rather than increasing in England.
  • A systems approach to analysing the role of the blue-green infrastructure in sustainable urban development is important and could support new financial models for their increased uptake.
  • Systems approaches to blue-green infrastructure planning includes understanding how their benefits propagate across all urban infrastructure sectors, and more broadly people and environment.

Download: Integrating green and blue spaces into our cities - Making it happen

View all Grantham Briefing Papers and Notes

[image credit: baona]