Integrating green and blue spaces into our cities – Making it happen [PDF]

Summary    Authors: Kathryn Brown, Dr Ana Mijic  Imperial College, Grantham Institute

This 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