TY - JOUR
T1 - Progressing Green Infrastructure planning
T2 - understanding its scalar, temporal, geo-spatial and disciplinary evolution
AU - Mell, Ian
AU - Clement, Sarah
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IAIA.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Growing recognition has developed between policy-makers and practitioners that green infrastructure (GI) provides an approach to planning for effectively integrating ecosystems, biodiversity, socio-economic and political factors into a coherent framework for environmental management. While there has been progressive development of the concept, a deeper analysis demonstrates that this process has been disjointed. We identify four factors or ‘axes’ related to: temporal, geographic, scalar and disciplinary variation, which have shaped how GI is promoted and implemented. This paper traces coalescence and divergence across GI planning, using these four axes to map the concept’s development. It also questions whether the lack of alignment between GI research and Impact Assessment (IA) is grounded in existing disciplinary mentalities or related to governance or geographical variation. From this analysis, we identify that these factors interact with socio-political and economic drivers shaping the terminology used, but this is not translated into effective evaluative practice. Although flexibility is one of the main strengths of GI, we argue that some degree of harmonisation will help advance the use of GI in environmental planning and assessment.
AB - Growing recognition has developed between policy-makers and practitioners that green infrastructure (GI) provides an approach to planning for effectively integrating ecosystems, biodiversity, socio-economic and political factors into a coherent framework for environmental management. While there has been progressive development of the concept, a deeper analysis demonstrates that this process has been disjointed. We identify four factors or ‘axes’ related to: temporal, geographic, scalar and disciplinary variation, which have shaped how GI is promoted and implemented. This paper traces coalescence and divergence across GI planning, using these four axes to map the concept’s development. It also questions whether the lack of alignment between GI research and Impact Assessment (IA) is grounded in existing disciplinary mentalities or related to governance or geographical variation. From this analysis, we identify that these factors interact with socio-political and economic drivers shaping the terminology used, but this is not translated into effective evaluative practice. Although flexibility is one of the main strengths of GI, we argue that some degree of harmonisation will help advance the use of GI in environmental planning and assessment.
KW - Green infrastructure
KW - advocacy
KW - consensus
KW - discourse coalitions
KW - terminology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066019178&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14615517.2019.1617517
DO - 10.1080/14615517.2019.1617517
M3 - Article
SN - 1461-5517
VL - 38
SP - 449
EP - 463
JO - Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal
JF - Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal
IS - 6
ER -