Identification and assessment of green infrastructure in the Community of Madrid

Abstract

The recently approved Spanish Green Infrastructure (GI) Strategy obliges each autonomous community to identify and evaluate its own GI. This paper identifies and assesses the GI in the Community of Madrid at regional scale. This entailed, firstly, the identification of GI Principal Areas (GIPAS). This was followed by a spatial assessment of GI on the basis of three indicators: the Contribution to Ecosystem Services, the Combined Biodiversity Index and the Accessibility Index. After that, the correlations between GI assessment values and socioeconomic indicators were explored. The highest GI assessment values were located around the Sistema Central mountain range, and the lowest were in the Metropolitan Area and Henares Corridor. Finally, significant negative correlations were observed between the GI assessment values, population density and gross per capita income. The results of this study could provide useful support for the planning and decision-making required for the spatial definition of GI in the autonomous Community of Madrid.

Keywords:

• Green infrastructure
• Community of Madrid
• ecosystem services
• accessibility
• biodiversity
• GIS

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Madrid Regional Cartographic Information Centre for supplying some of the datasets used in this analysis.

Geolocation information

Autonomous Community of Madrid. Spain. Centroid: longitude -3.715995; latitude 40.494801. Extent coordinates: Top 41.165845; Left: -4.579076; Bottom: 39.884719; Right -3.052983. (EPSG 4326. Units: decimal degrees).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juan Carlos Velázquez Melero

Juan Carlos Velázquez Melero graduated with honours in Environmental Biology from the Complutense University of Madrid, where he worked as a researcher in ecosystem cartography and forest dynamics. For the last 5 years he has been working as a GIS analyst in Tragsatec, a public company that performs environmental projects for the Spanish Ministry of Environment. In this company, he has taken part in different projects related with habitat cartography, spatial data analysis, and the methodological approach applied in the Spanish Green Infrastructure Strategy. He recently obtained a Master’s degree in Geographic Information Technologies from Alcalá de Henares University, where he is currently conducting research into procedural methods for the spatial assessment of Ecosystem Services and Green Infrastructure. He is particularly interested in spatial data analysis, ecosystems management, habitat cartography and optimisation of data processing through programming.

Víctor Manuel Rodríguez-Espinosa

Víctor Manuel Rodríguez-Espinosa, PhD in the Department of Geology, Geography and Environment, University of Alcalá (Madrid, Spain), is a member of the Research Group ‘Geographical Information Technologies and Territorial Analysis (GITIGAT)’ (https://geogra.uah.es/gitigat/) and coordinator of the University Group on Cooperation for Development ‘TIG for Cooperation in Territorial Planning (GUdC-TIGCOT)’. His lines of research lines focus on the application of GIT in the resolution of socio-territorial problems, the optimal location of facilities, simulation of urban growth, risk mapping and territorial and environmental planning.