Green Infrastruture to combat Climate Change

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Green infrastructure has been defined in Northwest England as the region's life support system – the network of natural environmental components and green and blue spaces that lie within and between our cities, towns and villages and provide multiple social, economic and environmental benefits.

A key benefit of green infrastructure is in helping us to both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

 

  

Mitigation refers to reducing greenhouse emissions and concentrations in order to limit the severity of future climate change.

 

The mitigation role of green infrastructure is limited but important, and includes:

 

• Carbon storage and sequestration - storing carbon in soils and vegetation.
• Fossil fuel substitution - replacing fossil fuels with sustainably managed biofuels.
• Material substitution - replacing materials such as concrete and steel (which involve high fossil fuel consumption in their production) with sustainably managed wood (and other natural materials).
• Food production - reducing food miles and altering agricultural practices (such as organic farming) to reduce carbon emissions.
• Reducing the need to travel by car - providing local recreation areas and green travel routes to encourage walking and cycling.

Adaptation recognises that there is now some inevitable climate change locked into the system. It seeks to build capacity and take action to respond to the likely impacts.

 

In the UK, climate projections (UKCP09) suggest warmer wetter winters and hotter drier summers, with more extreme events such as heatwaves, droughts and heavy rainfall. The adaptation role of green infrastructure is perhaps more significant. It includes:

 

• Managing high temperatures - particularly in urban areas, where evaporative cooling and shading provided by green infrastructure can ensure that towns and cities continue to be attractive and comfortable places to live, work, visit and invest.
• Managing water supply - green infrastructure can provide places to store water for re-use, allows water to infiltrate into the ground sustaining aquifers and river flows, and can catch sediment and remove pollutants from the water, thereby ensuring that water supply and quality is maintained.
• Managing riverine flooding - green infrastructure can provide water storage and retention areas, reducing and slowing down peak flows, and thereby helping to alleviate river flooding.
• Managing coastal flooding - green infrastructure can provide water storage and retention areas, reducing and slowing tidal surges, and thereby helping to alleviate coastal flooding.
• Managing surface water - urban green infrastructure can help to manage surface water and sewer flooding by reducing the rate and volume of water runoff; it intercepts water, allows it to infiltrate into the ground, and provides permanent or temporary storage areas.
• Reducing soil erosion - using vegetation to stabilise soils that many be vulnerable to increasing erosion.
• Helping other species to adapt - providing a more vegetated and permeable landscape through which species can move northwards to new 'climate spaces'.
• Managing visitor pressure - providing a recreation and visitor resource for a more outdoors lifestyle, and helping to divert pressure from landscapes which are sensitive to climate change.

 

 

 

Green infrastructure in the North West Climate Change Action Plan

 

The potential for green infrastructure to mitigate and adapt to climate change impacts in North West England is being explored by Community Forests North West through the North West Climate Change Action Plan. The stages to this work will be informed by an expert advisory panel and stakeholder workshops. They include:
 

1. Climate change, risks, opportunities and priorities
Climate change projections will be used to identify risks and opportunities which green infrastructure can help to both reduce and realise. These will be prioritised for North West England.

 

2. Evidence base of research, policy and delivery
An evidence base has been created holding a review of key research findings relevant to the climate change roles of green infrastructure, supportive policies, and delivery projects.
 

3. Green infrastructure climate change assets
The most critical areas of the North West for the various climate change roles of green infrastructure will be identified and mapped. This will highlight where green infrastructure needs to be safeguarded and managed, if it exists, and enhanced and created, if it does not exist.

 

4. Detailed study of two strategically important areas
The climate change roles of green infrastructure will be investigated in more detail in two key areas. These could: have a specific climate change risk or opportunity which green infrastructure can help address, be critical areas for the climate change roles of green infrastructure, be areas which are subject to change or investment.
 

5. North West Green Infrastructure Climate Change Action Plan
The work will lead towards the development of a plan, with actions which can be delivered by partners and stakeholders across the region to ensure that the climate change benefit of green infrastructure is maximised.
 

 

Progress so far

 

An initial report, produced as part of this project, looked into the 'Critical Climate Change Functions of Green Infrastructure for Sustainable Economic Development in the North West'. This aimed to influence the forthcoming NW Regional Strategy 2010 and has now been broadened to consider the wider range of green infrastructure benefits (read the executive summary and full report of 'Green Infrastructure Solutions to Pinch Point Issues in NW England').

 

As part of the project, green infrastructure and hydrology in a changing climate was explored through a 4 month internship. Click here for more information on this.

 

In June 2010 a report was published; 'Green infrastructure: How and where can it help the Northwest mitigate and adapt to climate change?' The report identifies 13 'services' provided by green infrastructure. The report also contains regional, sub-regional and local mapping, which attempts to show where these services are most important for the Northwest and where action should be targeted.

 

Get involved!

 

Public and private stakeholders in the North West and beyond are already developing policies and delivering projects which impact both positively and negatively on our green infrastructure.

 

It is essential that changes, where they occur, maximise the role of green infrastructure in combating climate change.

 

Please contact us for more information and to get involved in developing and implementing the emerging North West Green Infrastructure Climate Change Action Plan.

 

Your support is crucial in ensuring that the Action Plan can and will be delivered.