The emergence of green infrastructure as promoting the centralisation of a landscape perspective in spatial planning—the case of Ireland

Abstract

The ‘landscape’ approach to planning and design has long since advanced a social–ecological perspective that conceives ecosystems health and human well-being as mutually constitutive. However, conventional public sector organisational arrangements segregate and discretely administer development issues, thereby militating against the holistic viewpoint necessary to redress the entwined nature of complex planning issues. The emergence and continuing evolution of green infrastructure (GI) thinking seeks to redress this problem by promoting interdisciplinary collaboration to deliver connected and functionally integrated environments. This paper reflects upon the ongoing development and institutionalisation of GI in Ireland as a means to critically evaluate ‘if’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ GI thinking promotes the centralisation of landscape principles in public sector planning. Drawing on a review of local authority practices and interviews with local authority officials, the paper traces and explains the concept’s growth from the ‘rebranding’ of ecological networks to its current manifestation as a new mode of collaborative planning for multifunctional environments. This material is then employed to discuss the potential benefits and barriers encountered by GI planning more generally. Lessons are subsequently extrapolated for the advancement of landscape principles through innovative GI planning practices in other jurisdictions.

Keywords:

• Green infrastructure
• landscape perspective
• spatial planning
• social–ecological systems
• resilience

Notes

1. Section 19 of the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2012 specifies that this review interval can be deferred subject to provisions specified in the Act regarding deferral time limits and the justifications for seeking a deferral.

2. Working on a broad definition of ‘heritage’, these officers help coordinate and provide input to numerous council activities ranging from natural environmental issues through to landscape and archaeology, as well as built and cultural heritage matters. As such, their activities frequently interact with the local planning policy development process.

3. Defined by Tubridy and O’Riain, (Tubridy & O’Riain, 2002, p. 1) as, ‘a network of sites. Its constituents are: “core areas” of high biodiversity value and “corridors” or “stepping stones”, which are linkages between them. In contrast to species or site based conservation, the ecological network approach promotes management of “linkages” between areas of high biodiversity value, between areas of high and low biodiversity value, between areas used by species for different functions, and between local populations of species. “Corridors” or linking areas can support species migration, dispersal or daily movements’.

4. Ireland’s National Tourism Development Authority.