Green Infrastructure Design Research Articles

Residents’ perceptions of green infrastructure in the contemporary residential context: a study of Kingswood, Kingston-upon-Hull, England

Recent developments in the conceptualisation of green infrastructure have used ecosystems services as a framework to understand its multi-functionality. A number of studies explore green infrastructure functions and services, both outside and within the field of planning and design, primarily from the perspective of professionals. The research reported here uses an ‘on-site’ and ‘sharp-narrative’ qualitative approach in a typical urban extension in Kingston upon Hull, England, to gain further insight into how residents perceive green infrastructure and which aspects of it they value. The findings indicate that they understand green infrastructure experientially rather than functionally, predominantly appreciating its cultural services. The article addresses a gap in our understanding of residents’ perceptions of green infrastructure and its benefits within contemporary, master planned, speculative housing development. This knowledge is important at a time of rapid urban development to inform the successful planning and design of green infrastructure in new residential neighbourhoods.

Green infrastructure planning: Unveiling meaningful spaces through Foursquare users’ preferences

The design of efficient Green Infrastructure —GI— systems is a key issue to achieve sustainable development city planning goals in the twenty-first century. This study’s main contribution is the identification of potential GI elements to better align the environmental, social and economic perspectives in the GI design by including information about the use, activities, preferences and presence of people. To achieve this, user generated content from Location Based Social Network —LBSN— Foursquare is used as a complementary data source. This involved the construction of an interdisciplinary correlation framework, between the Landscape Ecology principles and the GI elements, that included the classification of Foursquare data into grouping types. The classification considered the potential role of Foursquare venues in the GI network. Valencia City in Spain served as an illustrative case study to test the validity of the proposed method. The results suggest that Foursquare can provide a valuable insight on user perceptions of potential GI elements. Moreover, the findings indicate that user generated content from LBSNs like Foursquare can serve as a complementary tool for analysing the dynamics of urban outdoor spaces to assess GI network, thereby facilitating more effective urban planning and contributing to the social sustainability of the city.

ZELENI KORIDORI KAO ELEMENT URBANOG PLANIRANJA: POGLED IZ TREBINJA

Rad istražuje mogućnost unapređenja kvaliteta života i prirodnog okruženja u procesu razvoja gradovaplaniranjem zelene infrastrukture na lokacijama napuštenih željezničkih koridora. Teoretsko istraživanjeobuhvata elaboraciju definicije, funkcije i podjele zelenih koridora sa naglašavanjem njihovih ekoloških,socio-ekonomskih i zdravstvenih beneficija kako za pojedinca tako i zajednicu, koje se prije svega odnosena podsticanje očuvanja kulturnog i prirodnog nasljeđa, promociju zdravog načina života i održivogekološkog turizma. Preispitani su osnovni aspekti razvojnih procesa gradova, a poseban akcenat je stavljenna urbanu matricu Trebinja. U posljednjoj etapi razvojnih tokova Trebinje je pod snažnim uticajemopštih društveno-političkih promjena koje su ga postavile u sasvim drugi kontekst prostorno-funkcionalnihrelacija u odnosu na okruženje. Uspostavljanjem snažnih državnih granica Bosne i Hercegovine iHrvatske je onemogućen istorijski kontinuitet razvoja grada oslonjen na saobraćaje, trgovačke i kulturneveze sa južnim zaleđem. Smanjene ekonomske aktivnosti i radikalna promjena privredne strukture grada,uzrok su napuštanja proizvodnih kapaciteta, a samim tim stvaranja značajnih prostornih resursa ibraunfild lokacija. Istraživanje je fokusirano na poligon nekadašnje željezničke stanice Trebinje. Ovajneaktivni željeznički koridor ukazuje na mogućnost transformacije u linearni park, sa ciljem postizanjaekoloških, socio-ekonomskih i zdravstvenih beneficija, jer vrijednost gradskog prostora zavisi odkvantitativnog, ali i kvalitativnog udjela pejzaža u fizičkoj strukturi grada. Dakle, rezultati teoretskogistraživanja ovog rada su aplicirani kroz diskurs o razvoju i dizajnu zelene infrastrukture na konkretnojstudiji slučaja.

Integrating Green-Infrastructures Design in Strategic Spatial Planning with Geodesign

In the last decades green infrastructure planning, design, and management have been widely recognized as a way to contribute to reach higher levels of sustainability of development. However, often green infrastructures are considered in a sectoral way, while their design should be more integrated within comprehensive planning and design. The paper proposes the use of geodesign methods and technology to support the early phases of integrated strategic territorial planning, in order to enrich the relationships between the design of green infrastructure and of the other relevant systems via more comprehensive planning and design, and by applying systems thinking. A case study developed with architecture and engineering students under the umbrella of the International Geodesign Collaboration is used, to demonstrate how with intensive geodesign workshops it is possible to create spatially explicit design scenarios which take into account the relationships between green infrastructure and other territorial systems and dynamics. A set of analyses on the case study results of the two scales is used to demonstrate the assumption. It is also argued that geodesign intensive workshops can, in a very short time, contribute to raising the awareness among the participants of collaborative design to the importance of green infrastructure in strategic territorial planning.

城市热岛“源-汇”景观识别及降温效率

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 城市热岛“源-汇”景观识别及降温效率 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201904140747 作者: 作者单位: 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金项目（41771204） “Source-sink” landscape identification of the urban heat island and the cooling efficiency Author: Affiliation: Fund Project: National Natural Foundation of China 'Risk from urban island and mechanism of landscape for mitigation and adaptation' 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:快速城市化背景下，不同景观降温效率的差异是深入理解景观格局对城市热岛效应影响机理的基础。现有城市热岛研究多以土地利用或土地覆被替代热岛效应的源与汇，往往忽略景观的热特征与相邻景观的热关系，造成信息偏差。需要从景观热特征的视角，探讨面向城市热岛效应的景观分类方法，并分析不同特征景观的降温效率差异。基于"源-汇"景观理论，以深圳市西部为研究区，构建面向城市热岛的景观分类方法，通过2010年TM遥感影像提取NDVI、NDMI及ISA等地表特征及地表温度特性，叠加划分16类城市景观，分析不同地表特征的景观等距离梯度下的温度变化关系，识别城市热岛的"源-汇"景观。在此基础上，分析"源-汇"景观的结构特征，构建以面积和温度为影响因素的景观降温效率指数，结合景观格局指数，分析不同面积与形状的"汇"景观降温效率。结果表明，在16类景观中，5类景观被识别为城市热岛汇景观，面积约533 km2，占研究区总面积的45.5%。降温效率结果表明，"汇"景观的降温效率为1.54，其中绿色空间及阴影景观的降温效率贡献率较高。通过面积与形状的景观格局分析发现，降温效果随两个指数的增加，均呈先升后降的趋势。研究结果为城市规划与城市绿色基础设施建设决策中降温景观的形状和面积设定提供依据，增加景观水平的缓解热岛效应的效率。 Abstract:In the context of rapid urbanization, the difference in cooling efficiency of different landscapes is the basis of understanding the influence mechanism underpinning landscape pattern on urban heat island effect. Existing studies on the heat island effect primarily use land use or land cover as the proxy for the source and sink landscape. This creates an information bias by ignoring the thermal characteristics of the landscape and the thermal relationship with adjacent landscapes. It is deemed necessary to explore the landscape classification method for the urban heat island effect and analyze differences in the cooling efficiency of landscapes with different characteristics. Based on "source-sink" landscape theory, this study constructs a landscape classification method for urban heat island using the western part of Shenzhen City as the study area. Sixteen urban landscape types were divided based on the extraction of surface features such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Moisture Index, and Impervious Surface Area and land surface temperature from Thematic Mapper remote sensing imagery in 2010. With the analysis of the temperature relationship under the equal distance gradient for landscapes with different surface features, the "source-sink" landscape of urban heat island was identified. On this basis, the composed landscape characteristics of the "source-sink" landscape were analyzed, and the cooling efficiency of landscape with area and temperature as influencing factors was calculated. Combined with the landscape pattern index, the cooling efficiency of separate areas and shapes of the sink landscape was analyzed. Five landscape types were identified as the urban heat island sink landscape. The area is approximately 533 km2, accounting for 45.5% of the total study area. Results of cooling efficiency showed that the cooling efficiency of the "sink" landscape is 1.54, among which the contribution rate of green space and shadow landscape was higher. Based on the analysis of landscape patterns, it was found that the cooling efficiency both first increases and then decreases with the increase of the index value. The results can provide support for the shape and area setting of a cooling landscape in urban planning and urban green infrastructure design decision-making, mitigate urban heat island effect and increase the cooling efficiency at the landscape level. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Designing Urban Green Blue Infrastructure for Mental Health and Elderly Wellbeing

The main objective of this essay is to illustrate the state-of-the-art on ‘mental health-sensitive’ open space design in the built environment. Urban Green Blue Infrastructure can contribute to urbanites’ mental health and wellbeing as well as healthy aging, while providing co-benefits balancing the negative impacts of climate change, through the provision of integrated ecosystem services. There are a number of ways that exposure to and affiliation with Nature have shown to support mental health, but we are still missing the necessary evidence of the actual benefits achieved, as well as the key performance indicators and metrics to monitor and adapt our open space to the growing urban challenges. After introducing the key concepts of degenerative mental disorders as they are growing in the urban environment, and the emerging green blue infrastructure design approach, the authors present international case studies describing how evidence-based design and Nature-based Solutions have been found to be beneficial, especially to those diagnosed with mental disorders. Subsequently, in a comparative critical analysis, the authors look closer at a number of design solutions capable, at different scales, to support healthy aging through exposure to, and affiliation with, biodiversity.

Impacts of vehicle emission from a major road on spatiotemporal variations of neighborhood particulate pollution—A case study in a university campus

Spatial and temporal variations of traffic-related particulate pollution, e.g. PM1.0, PM2.5, and PM10, were monitored in a university campus in Wuhan, China with mobile and fixed-site approaches. We repeated mobile measurements when there was a high vehicle volume on the major road near the campus and only few traffic in the campus. PM concentrations and GPS coordinates were tracked to plot the spatial distributions of PM concentrations on the streets in the campus. Meanwhile, we carried out the fixed-site monitoring to characterize temporal variation of PM concentrations on the rooftop of two four-floor buildings in the campus, one 140 m and another 700 m away from the major road. Results showed that vehicle emission from the major road could contribute a large portion of PM pollution in the campus, especially with a low background concentration. PM concentration decreased rapidly when it was about 180 m away from the major road. The spatial decays of PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations were faster than that of PM1.0 concentration. Moreover, the hourly variations of PM concentrations indicated to be correlated with the traffic volume on the major road. This study provided a valuable suggestion for design and planning of urban green infrastructure.

The degree, extent and value of air temperature amelioration by urban green spaces in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT Urban greenery provide a variety of goods and services to city dwellers. A core one is amelioration of the urban heat island effect. However, the many estimates from temperate regions cannot be extrapolated to the tropics, where more empirical studies are required to guide urban planning and optimization of green infrastructure design and distribution. This study reports on the temperature differentials in fortnightly readings, in winter and summer, between 12 urban green spaces and the surrounding built-up urban matrix at increasing distances from each green space. Additionally, the value of energy costs saved for air conditioning by urban greenery was calculated. The mean difference in temperature between green spaces and neighbouring built-up areas was 3.6°C, and in summer ranged from 0.9°C to 6.1°C and in winter 0.9°C to 5.7°C. The cooling effects extended up to 1.7 km beyond the centre of green spaces. The magnitude of cooling increased slightly with increasing green space size. These cooling effects translated into a cost on energy saving of approximately US$532/household/yr. Given the weak economy and incomes in Zimbabwe, this saving is considerable and can contribute to the multiple motivations for more green spaces in the city.

Converting traditional landscape into resilient landscape in Zhenjiang City to manage stormwater runoff: A case study

Since the beginning of low impact development (LID) introduced into China, the aesthetic perspective has been a big issue in LID practices. Many landscape architects viewed LIDs as a contradiction to the traditional landscape design. Therefore, a significant challenge in Sponge City construction in China is to communicate with landscape architects understanding the importance of managing stormwater runoff and pollutant removal close to the source. In this paper, we presented a framework developed for civil engineers and landscape architects working together to guide the LID or green infrastructure design. We presented a case study in China using this guideline to build a resilient landscape with aesthetics. It illustrated that the beautiful landscape could be integrated into local LID and regional green stormwater infrastructures for flood mitigation and high pollution load removal.

The contribution of constructed green infrastructure to urban biodiversity: A synthesis and meta‐analysis

Abstract The development of buildings and other infrastructure in cities is viewed as a threat to local biodiversity and ecosystem functioning because natural habitat is replaced. However, there is momentum for implementing green infrastructure (GI), such as green roofs, wetland detention basins and community gardens, that partially offset these impacts and that benefit human health. GI is often designed to explicitly support ecosystem services, including implied benefits to biodiversity. The effects of GI on biodiversity have been rarely quantified, but research on this topic has increased exponentially in the last decade and a synthesis of the literature is needed. Here, we examined 1,883 published manuscripts and conducted a meta‐analysis on 33 studies that were relevant. We determined whether GI provides additional benefits to biodiversity over conventional infrastructure or natural counterparts. We also highlighted research gaps and identified opportunities to improve future applications. We determined that GI significantly improves biodiversity over conventional infrastructure equivalents, and that in some cases GI had comparable measures of biodiversity to natural counterparts. Many studies were omitted from these analyses because we found GI research has generally neglected conventional experimental design frameworks, including controls, replication or adequate sampling effort. Synthesis and applications. Our synthesis identified that taxa specificity is an important consideration for green infrastructure (GI) design relative to the more common measurements at the community level. We also identified that ignoring multi‐trophic interactions and landscape‐level patterns can limit our understanding of GI effects on biodiversity. We recommend further examination of species‐specific differences among infrastructures (i.e. green, conventional or natural equivalents) or using functional traits to improve the efficacy of GI implementation on urban biodiversity. Furthermore, we encourage policy makers and practitioners to improve the design of GI to benefit urban ecosystems because of the potential benefits for both humans and global biodiversity.

The Multifunctional Benefits of Green Infrastructure in Community Development: An Analytical Review Based on 447 Cases

This article describes the relationship between the design features of green infrastructure and the benefits of multifunctionality. To do so, it examines the descriptive linkages between 12 design features and nine benefits using 447 project case studies from the American Society of Landscape Architects. Multiple benefits of green infrastructure were found in 65% of the projects, regardless of the number of applied design features. The major green infrastructure design features with multiple benefits were: bioretention areas, permeable pavements, grassed swales, rainwater harvesting, rain gardens, and curb cuts. The major benefits of applied design features were: enhanced economic capacity, educational opportunities, improvements to the built environment, and enhanced environmental soundness. The findings show that the multiple benefits of green infrastructure’s multifunctionality can be inferred in many current cases. Knowing the relationship between design features and their benefits for green infrastructure would facilitate selecting optimal design features to achieve specific goals and planning outcomes. For communities that require a range of complex benefits, a multifunctionality-based green infrastructure will advance highly acceptable climate change adaptation measures.

Green Infrastructure Design Influences Communities of Urban Soil Bacteria.

The importance of natural ecosystem processes is often overlooked in urban areas. Green Infrastructure (GI) features have been constructed in urban areas as elements to capture and treat excess urban runoff while providing a range of ancillary benefits, e.g., ecosystem processes mediated by microorganisms that improve air and water quality, in addition to the associations with plant and tree rhizospheres. The objective of this study was to characterize the bacterial community and diversity in engineered soils (Technosols) of five types of GI in New York City; vegetated swales, right of way bioswales (ROWB; including street-side infiltration systems and enhanced tree pits), and an urban forest. The design of ROWB GI features directly connects with the road to manage street runoff, which can increase the Technosol saturation and exposure to urban contaminants washed from the street and carried into the GI feature. This GI design specifically accommodates dramatic pulses of water that influence the bacterial community composition and diversity through the selective pressure of contaminants or by disturbance. The ROWB had the highest biodiversity, but no significant correlation with levels of soil organic matter and microbially-mediated biogeochemical functions. Another important biogeochemical parameter for soil bacterial communities is pH, which influenced the bacterial community composition, consistent with studies in non-urban soils. Bacterial community composition in GI features showed signs of anthropogenic disturbance, including exposure to animal feces and chemical contaminants, such as petroleum products. Results suggest the overall design and management of GI features with a channeled connection with street runoff, such as ROWB, have a comprehensive effect on soil parameters (particularly organic matter) and the bacterial community. One key consideration for future assessments of GI microbial community would be to determine the source of organic matter and elucidate the relationship between vegetation, Technosol, and bacteria in the designed GI features.

Evaluating and Planning Green Infrastructure: A Strategic Perspective for Sustainability and Resilience

In the light of the current changing global scenarios, green infrastructure is obtaining increasing relevance in planning policies, especially due to its ecological, environmental and social components which contribute to pursuing sustainable and resilient planning and designing of cities and territories. The issue of green infrastructure is framed within the conceptual contexts of sustainability and resilience, which are described through the analysis of their common aspects and differences with a particular focus on planning elements. In particular, the paper uses two distinct case studies of green infrastructure as representative: the green infrastructure of the Region Languedoc-Roussillon in France and the one of the Province of Turin in Italy. The analysis of two case studies focuses on the evaluation process carried on about the social-ecological system and describes the methodologies and the social-ecological indicators used to define the green infrastructure network. We related these indicators to their possible contribution to the measurement of sustainability and resilience. The analysis of this relationship led us to outline some conclusive considerations on the complex role of the design of green infrastructure with reference to sustainability and resilience.

Stated preferences for smart green infrastructure in stormwater management

Many smart technologies have been proposed to improve existing or new infrastructures by adding sensing, controls, communications and computing, but it is not well understood which actual functions and capabilities are desired by potential users. Since water systems in the United States are largely run by public sector agencies, this study conducted a national survey with officials in water utilities and agencies to understand what kinds and capabilities of smart green infrastructure are desired for stormwater management. Analyzing the stated preferences of these users using a discrete choice model, our results indicate that these officials are willing to invest more upfront in smart technologies if they lower the costs associated over time with construction, maintenance, and labor. For example, in a typical rain garden, water agencies are willing to pay 12.1% more for construction to reduce maintenance costs by 20% and would pay 12.9% more to add self-irrigating capabilities. Preferences for smart green infrastructure among agencies are also affected by their characteristics. Agencies with large service areas or prior experience with green infrastructure are more likely to adopt smart green infrastructure. These results should assist in the further design and development of smart technologies and green infrastructure in stormwater management.

A novel computational green infrastructure design framework for hydrologic and human benefits

Increased storm-water runoff and flooding and poor ecosystem health have brought increasing attention to catchment-wide implementation of green infrastructure (e.g., bioswales, rain gardens, permeable pavements, tree box filters, urban wetlands and forests, stream buffers, and green roofs) to replace or supplement conventional storm water management practices and create more sustainable urban water systems. Current green infrastructure (GI) practice aims at mitigating the negative effects of urbanization by restoring pre-development hydrology and ultimately addressing water quality issues at an urban catchment scale. However, the benefits of GI extend well beyond local storm water management, as urban green spaces are also major contributors to human health. Considerable research in the psychological sciences have shown significant human health benefits from appropriately designed green spaces, yet impacts on human wellbeing have not yet been formally considered in GI design frameworks. This work develops a novel computational green infrastructure (GI) design framework that integrates storm water management requirements with criteria for human wellbeing. A supervised machine-learning model is created to identify specific patterns in urban green spaces that promote human wellbeing; the model is linked to RHESSYS hydrological model to evaluate GI designs in terms of both water resource and human health benefits. An application of the framework to tree-based GI design in Dead Run Watershed, Baltimore, MD, shows that image-mining methods are able to capture key elements of human preferences that could improve GI design. The results also show that hydrologic benefits associated with tree-based features are substantial, indicating that increased urban tree coverage and a more integrated GI design approach can significantly increase both human and hydrologic benefits.

Green infrastructure design using GIS and spatial analysis: a proposal for the Henares Corridor (Madrid-Guadalajara, Spain)

ABSTRACTSince the late twentieth century, the concept of green infrastructure (GI) has gained increasing recognition as a valuable approach to spatial planning. Although GI is an eminently spatial element, there are still few instances where this type of infrastructure has been given explicit definition and delimitation. It is therefore necessary to develop methods capable of defining these infrastructures through explicit spatial suitability analysis of their component dimensions. Here, we present a methodology based on the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to identify and map potential areas for inclusion in a GI in the Henares Corridor (Madrid-Guadalajara, Spain). We analysed four factors (the contribution to ecosystem services, ecological connectivity, ecological status, and proximity/potential accessibility to the public), combined using multi-criteria evaluation techniques, thus offering different alternatives for defining and designing GI. The GI maps obtained show better results in less restrictive situations, which could be considered to articulate the existing protected areas.

Green infrastructure optimization to achieve pre-development conditions of a semiarid urban catchment

The introduced hydrologically comprehensive green infrastructure design approach exceeds conventional stormwater runoff reduction goals in terms of common environmental benefits.

Influence of environmental factors on retention of extensive green roofs with different substrate composition

Increasing recognition is being given to the adaption of green roofs in urban areas to enhance the local ecosystem. Green roofs may bring several benefits to urban areas including flood mitigation Analysis of environmental factors affecting the outflow of green roofs is the subject of many studies. The work assessed how environmental factors moisture of structural layers and antecedent dry weather period influence the retention on two types of green roof substrates. The monitoring of environmental factors and amount of runoff was carried out on two models of green roofs covered by extensive vegetation (mosssedum-herbs) with substrates of an organic-mineral and mineral composition for 8 months. A statistical regression approach identified potential antecedent meteorological factors and moisture indicators of extensive green-roof retention. Continuous field monitoring data revealed the combined effects of rainfall depth and antecedent dry weather period to explain the measured stormwater retention under a moderate climate conditions regime. It is important to incorporate site-specific planning and assessment prior to green infrastructure design.

Enhancing landscape connectivity through multifunctional green infrastructure corridor modeling and design

Landscape connectivity is critical for ecosystem health and biodiversity conservation, yet urbanization is increasing habitat fragmentation. Green corridors that connect isolated remnant habitat patches (e.g. parks) can increase connectivity and provide ecosystem services in cities. Vacant land, especially prevalent in shrinking cities, presents a unique opportunity to reconnect these landscapes. This paper provides a practical and replicable approach for assessing landscape connectivity patterns and identifying priority locations for green corridors. The methodology integrates social and ecological factors coupled with site-scale multifunctional greenway designs and is applied to the city of Detroit as a proof of concept. First, we use FRAGSTATS to evaluate structural landscape connectivity patterns at a census tract scale. A functional connectivity assessment based on graph theory and Conefor software is used to validate the results, which indicate that habitat is highly fragmented in Detroit. To identify opportunities to reduce this fragmentation, we use a least-cost path approach to map potential green corridors linking city parks through vacant parcels, alleys, and smaller green spaces, and prioritize these corridors using a gravity model and network analysis. To make the model more concrete and useful for decision-makers, we develop site-level multifunctional corridor design typologies. This study presents a novel approach to assessing urban connectivity and a multi-scalar, systematic methodology for planning urban green infrastructure networks that connects landscape ecology with practical planning and design considerations to maximize social and ecological functions.

Cost-effective restoration and conservation planning in Green and Blue Infrastructure designs. A case study on the Intercontinental Biosphere Reserve of the Mediterranean: Andalusia (Spain) – Morocco

Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) is a network designed and planned to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services and to protect biodiversity. Existing GBI designs lacked a systematic method to allocate restoration zones. This study proposes a novel approach for systematically selecting cost-effective areas for restoration on the basis of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and ecosystem condition to give an optimal spatial design of GBI. The approach was tested at a regional scale, in a transboundary setting encompassing the Intercontinental Biosphere Reserve of the Mediterranean in Andalusia (Spain) – Morocco (IBRM), across three aquatic ecosystems: freshwater, coastal and marine. We applied Marxan with Zones to stakeholder-defined scenarios of GBI in the IBRM. Specifically, we aimed to identify management zones within the GBl that addressed different conservation, restoration and exploitation objectives. Although almost all conservation targets were achieved, our results highlighted that the proportion of conservation features (i.e., biodiversity, ecosystem services) that would be compromised in the GBl, and the proportion of provisioning services that would be lost due to conservation (i.e., incidental representation) are potentially large, indicating that the probability of conflicts between conservation and exploitation goals in the area is high. The implementation of restoration zones improved connectivity across the GBI, and also achieved European and global policy targets. Our approach may help guide future applications of GBI to implement the flexible conservation management that aquatic environments require, considering many areas at different spatial scales, across multiple ecosystems, and in transboundary contexts.