Green infrastructure: The future of urban flood risk management?
2021
Urban flooding is a key global challenge which is expected to become exacerbated
under global change due to more intense rainfall and flashier runoff regimes over increasingly urban landscapes. Consequently, many cities are rethinking their
approach to flood risk management by using Green Infrastructure (GI) solutions to
reverse the legacy of hard engineering flood management approaches. The aim of GI
is to attenuate, restore and recreate a more natural flood response, bringing
hydrological responses closer to pre-urbanised conditions. However, GI effectiveness
is often difficult to determine, and depends on both the magnitude of storm events and the spatial scale of GI infrastructure. Monitoring of the successes and failures of GI
schemes is not routinely conducted. Thus, it can be difficult to determine whether GI
provides a sustainable solution to manage urban flooding. This paper provides an
international perspective on the current use of GI for urban flood mitigation and the
solutions it offers in light of current and future challenges. An increasing body of
literature further suggests that GI can be optimised alongside grey infrastructure to
provide a holistic solution that delivers multiple co-benefits to the environment and
society, while increasing flood resilience. GI will have to work synergistically with
existing and upgraded grey infrastructure if urban flood risk is to be managed in a
futureproof manner. Here, we discuss a series of priorities and challenges that must
be overcome to enable integration of GI into existing stormwater management
frameworks that effectively manage flood risk.
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