Green Infrastructure: new report helps policymakers sum up costs and benefits
'The Multifunctionality of Green Infrastructure’ In-depth Report, published by Science for Environment Policy, investigates how Green Infrastructure’s numerous functions can be cohesively evaluated, such as its ability to promote human health and wellbeing, conserve biodiversity and enhance ecosystem services. The report is free to download from: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/indepth_reports.htm(opens in new window) Green Infrastructure offers an integrated approach to landscape planning and development and is receiving increasing attention in EU policy. The report suggests it is capable of improving quality of life in many ways, through the networking of natural and green spaces in rural, urban, coastal and marine areas, but the multifunctionality that is key to its strength, can also mean that its costs and benefits are hard to measure. For example, although some elements of Green Infrastructure with clear functions and objectives can be easy to measure, such as the ability of green roofs to reduce stormwater runoff, it can be challenging to identify one overall measurement that encompasses all the different objectives of Green Infrastructure. The report outlines research on how policymakers can evaluate Green Infrastructure’s performance. Placing a monetary value on Green Infrastructure’s functions is one means of providing an overall assessment of its effects, and the report explores methods for achieving this. Studies have shown that monetary valuations are also easy to communicate to stakeholders and the public and can feed directly into policy decisions. Stakeholder participation will be crucial to the success of Green Infrastructure, says the report. ‘The Multifunctionality of Green Infrastructure’ is the most recent in a new series of special reports from Science for Environment Policy, the news and information service published by the European Commission’s Directorate General for the Environment. The In-depth Reports present the latest relevant science for policy issues in Europe. Other reports in the series are ‘Soil Sealing’, which explores the effects of covering the land with concrete and other impermeable surfaces, and ‘Plastic Waste: Ecological and Human Health Impacts’. Both are available to download from: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/indepth_reports.htm(opens in new window)
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