Assessing green infrastructure as an effective strategy to help cities to build resilience to climate change

Abstract

The increase of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere due to human activities such as fossil fuel burning, deforestation and land-use changes, is causing increases in surface temperature. From the pre-industrial era to the current days, the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has increased from 280 ppm to 398.17 ppm (NOAA, 2015) and according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014) globally averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data show a warming of 0.85°C per decade over the period 1880 to 2012. Under higher temperatures, the atmosphere has a higher capacity to hold water vapor (Horton et al, 2010), increasing the time interval between rain events and the magnitude of precipitation especially in extreme events. Thus, at higher temperatures the frequency at which precipitations occur tends to decrease while the intensity of such precipitations tends to increase. In the urban environment, where typically the majority of surfaces are impermeable, the impact of climate change tends to exacerbate the occurrence and the intensity of floods as well as droughts and heat waves. Within this context, there has been much discussion about strategies that could effectively help cities to reduce their CO2 emissions to the atmosphere (mitigation strategies ) and to adapt to the impacts caused by climate change (adaptation strategies ). Regarding the impacts caused by urban floods, a decentralized approach, known as green infrastructure (GI) has been proposed as an alternative to the traditional concrete infrastructures (gray infrastructures [GR]). GI sustains, or attempts to replicate pre-development site hydrology in the post-development condition (Montalto, 2007), taking advantage of natural processes like infiltration, interception and evapotranspiration to manage stormwater (Davis et al, 2012). Beside capturing precipitation and reducing the amount of runoff that is convened to the sewer systems, GI can provide other benefits such as reduction of heat island effects, increased air and water quality, carbon sequestration, expansion of recreational spaces, increased habitat for flora and fauna among others (Wise et al, 2010). Because of their capacity to deliver multiple benefits, GI has been proposed as a sustainable alternative for cities to mitigate and adapt to climate change (Mason & Montalto, 2014; Union European, 2010). Several government grants have been launched recently to focus on the development, application and evaluation of methodologies for integrating GI into urban spaces as adaptation efforts to climate change (DOI, 2014; NOAA, 2014). Nevertheless, the body of literature that assesses GI as an effective strategy to help cities to build resilience to climate change remains small. For instance, the performance of designed urban green spaces under climate change is still poorly understood. In addition, the comparison between potential benefits of GI applied to urban watershed scale with the environmental costs associated with their installation and maintenance is…