Mainstreaming Blue Green Infrastructure in Cities: Barriers, Blind Spots, and Facilitators

Abstract

As the world becomes increasingly urbanised, the integration of Blue Green Infrastructure (BGI) into cities and towns is gaining focus and importance. In essence, BGI can help address complex urban problems, including a range of urban environmental issues, as well as contributing to residents' health and wellbeing and providing biodiversity habitat. Despite its growing theoretical currency, take-up of BGI in practice has been slow. This chapter offers a broad overview of the barriers, blind spots and facilitators for mainstreaming BGI in cities. The chapter draws on case study research conducted in cities from both the Global South and Global North, as well as from a review of literature on BGI and related initiatives, like Nature-based Solutions and Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA), in cities. It commences by providing a description of the theoretical and applied genealogy of BGI and some of its recognised characteristics. Then, the chapter focuses on the unique qualities required to mainstream BGI in urban water and green space management as an innately dispersed and decentralised approach. Here, and in line with an ethic of decolonisation, we seek to draw special attention to the non-linear and plural approaches to managing water and ecosystems in cities occurring around the world. We underscore the importance of framing this concept in history and the different trajectories of human-nature relations, as well as the importance of encouraging context-specific approaches and knowledge exchange on equal terms between regions and cultures. Then, we provide a brief overview of some frameworks utilised to evaluate capacity for and delivery of NbS, as well as a detailed examination of cross-cutting barriers, blind spots and facilitators for mainstreaming BGI.