Urban green infrastructure
Stephan Pauleit, Rieke Hansen, Emily Rall, Werner Rolf
Abstract
A concept that has had considerable influence on the potential of greenspace to help meet urban challenges is that of green infrastructure, which emerged in the USA in the 1990s as a way to help combat uncontrolled urban sprawl. The concept of green-space-as-infrastructure only strengthened as it began being promoted by the US Environmental Protection Agency as an approach to sustainable stormwater mitigation. Later research on the contribution of greenspaces to human health and well-being expanded the scope of consideration of green infrastructure’s potential to improve urban quality of life. Green–gray integration considers the urban network of green (and blue) spaces as a kind of infrastructure to be integrated and coordinated with other urban ‘gray’ infrastructure. Green infrastructure planning aims at a holistic approach of integrated planning instead of segregated planning of different infrastructure parts and systems, including developing physically and functionally interlinked systems.