Perceptions and preferences of urban residents for green infrastructure to help cities adapt to climate change threats

Abstract

Green infrastructure in cities is increasingly acknowledged as a way to contribute to tackling the challenges posed by climate change. However, studies analyzing urban inhabitants' attitudes towards green infrastructure when dealing with climate change effects are still scarce. Using as case studies two Portuguese cities of different sizes and socio-cultural and geographic contexts, this work analyzes inhabitants' awareness of climate change, the sensations they associate with green infrastructures, as well as the elements that they value, and uncovers their determinants using binary logistic models. These models allow to determine the association between the dependent variables and a set of variables such as the way inhabitants deal with heatwaves and perceive what GI is, among others. Inhabitants in the two cities show high awareness of climate change and similarities in the most relevant sensations associated with green infrastructure, as well as in the most valued elements in it. However, different determinants explain such results in each city. This finding highlights the need to consider the specificities of each city when green infrastructures are chosen, thus providing insights for other southern European countries facing the same extreme climatic events.