Urban resilience thinking in practice : ensuring flows of benefit from green and blue infrastructure

• Present and future urbanization together with climate change and other uncertainties make urban quality of life a criticalissue, and one that will need constant attention and deliberation. Across cities and contexts, urban ecosystems in the form of greenand blue infrastructure, have the potential to contribute to human well-being as well as supporting biodiversity, and to do so underdiverse conditions. However, the realization of this potential depends not only on the green and blue infrastructure itself, the well-beingbenefits are outcomes of the structures and processes of the entire urban system. Drawing on theory and insights from social-ecologicaltechnological systems (SETS) research and resilience assessments, we describe how a systemic understanding of the generation anddelivery of green and blue infrastructure benefits may inform cross-sectoral strategies and interventions for building resilience aroundthis particular aspect of human well-being. Connecting SETS to non-academic discourse and practice, we describe the urban systemin terms of three systemic controlling variables: infrastructure, institutions, and the perceptions of individual beneficiaries, which wecall filters, and how these can be used in different participatory processes to assess and build resilience around green and blueinfrastructure and its benefits.To ground the conceptual and theoretical framework in real world complexity and make it operational in practice we discuss three casestudies applying the framework in Barcelona, Halle, and Stockholm. All cases share the same general three-step process but theirindividual combinations of methods and adaptions of the filters framework are designed to fit with three necessarily unique collaborative,transdisciplinary processes. The cases are discussed in terms of outcomes and output, the ways they made use of the conceptualframework, and the challenges they faced. This exploratory work points to a new way of engaging with urban resilience—the strengthof the approach is that it is not limited to the identification of specific interventions or policy options, nor trying to prevent change;rather it focuses on how to move with change and build resilience through constant balancing of different types of SETS change. Ourstudy reinforces the growing understanding of how well-being benefits positioned as emergent outcomes of internal SETS interactionsoffers leverage for mainstreaming green and blue infrastructure throughout diverse governance processes and sectors.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

complex adaptive systems; knowledge co-creation; participatory processes; social-ecological-technological systems; solutionoriented research

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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