Speaker
Description
Adriatic cities face critical environmental and spatial challenges, mainly urban heat islands, flood risks and pollution, driven by urbanization and climate change. Green Infrastructure (GI) delivers critical ecosystem services to mitigate these issues. However, the planning and implementation of GI in the region often lack coherence, resulting in fragmented and suboptimal outcomes. To address this, the Interreg SI-HR ZeleNatura project developed a handbook to standardize GI planning and management in Adriatic cities while tackling the lack of awareness and understanding among decision-makers, municipal staff and other stakeholders required to engage with spatial issues. It focuses on equipping stakeholders with tools to understand the spatial dimensions of challenges and the transformative potential of GI. By fostering spatial literacy, the handbook facilitates informed decision-making and promotes more optimal implementation of GI.
Central to this research approach is the participatory process that bridges the gap between spatial expertise and local knowledge. The methodology actively involves local stakeholders, including municipal representatives, urban planners and community members through focus groups which include participatory mapping. This ensures that GI planning addresses specific local challenges and integrates the needs and priorities of diverse stakeholders by serving three critical functions:
- Problem identification: Engaging non-spatial professionals in focus groups sensitizes them to pressing urban issues, such as flood-prone areas, heat islands, and zones with insufficient green spaces. Stakeholders collectively define priority areas for intervention based on the issues recognized, fostering a shared understanding of urban challenges.
- Solution development: Using spatial analyses and a toolkit of GI elements (e.g., green roofs, urban forests, permeable surfaces), participants collaboratively propose tailored interventions for identified priority areas. Interactive tools, such as transparent mapping overlays and ecosystem service evaluations of GI elements facilitate context-sensitive and multifunctional GI solutions.
- Validation and integration: Proposed GI solutions are reviewed with professional guidance to ensure alignment with spatial plans, local policies, and environmental goals. This iterative process strengthens the feasibility and acceptance of GI strategies.
Results of the participatory process demonstrate its transformative impact on research and practice. Stakeholder input has been instrumental in identifying underrepresented urban issues, refining GI designs, and ensuring interventions are not only ecologically effective but also feasible. For example, the mapping exercises revealed nuanced community priorities and showed where certain types of green infrastructure are deliverable in terms of spatial availability.
The key contribution of the handbook is its ability to transform the way local stakeholders and non-spatial professionals engage with urban planning. The participatory process plays a pivotal role fostering a shared understanding of urban challenges and aligning perspectives towards GI implementation, serving both as a practical tool and a strategic guide for standardizing GI planning.
The handbook synthesizes the Problem identification, the Solution development and the Validation steps of the participatory approach and translates them into a practical framework, structured around three questions:
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Where GI? Participatory mapping and spatial analyses identify priority areas for GI interventions.
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What GI? A participatory toolkit supports the selection of GI types, optimized for local needs and ecosystem services.
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How GI? Guidelines emphasize participatory implementation, connectivity, multifunctionality, and integration across spatial scales.
This research will first outline contextual conditions under which Adriatic cities face pressing environmental challenges, emphasizing the role of GI in addressing these issues. It will then describe the participatory methods employed to bridge the gap between spatial professionals and local stakeholders highlighting how awareness-raising and stakeholder engagement were integral to identifying and solving spatial problems. Lastly, the research will evaluate the outcomes of this participatory approach, showcasing its effectiveness in developing tailored GI solutions and fostering a deeper understanding of spatial challenges among decision-makers.
| Keywords | green infrastructure; participatory mapping; green infrastructure toolkit; sensitizing decision-makers |
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| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
