Towards the Establishment of a Green Infrastructure in the Region of Montreal (Quebec, Canada)

Abstract

Through the analysis of semi-structured interviews held with key actors involved in the planning of the Greater Montreal region, we seek to understand the conditions that could lead to the establishment of a green infrastructure for the city. This article first describes the region's environmental and political context and then analyzes the opportunities, constraints, advantages and disadvantages in the implementation of this type of project. We conclude that experts favor an approach leading to ecological connectivity, but they underline several obstacles that could hinder its implementation.

Keywords::

• land-use and urban planning
• green infrastructure
• green belt
• Montreal

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Thomas Adams and Pascal Bigras for their help in data collection and Marc Girard for the cartography.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. MMC is an organization that offers regional management services to the population and land use planning of the urban area of Montreal.

^2. Commission d'enquête sur l'octroi et la gestion des contrats publics dans l'industrie de la construction, on line (August 25, 2014): https://www.ceic.gouv.qc.ca

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the David Suzuki Foundation, Nature-Action Québec, the Cowboys Fringants Foundation and the Jour de la Terre Québec. AG is supported by the Canada Research Chair program.

Notes on contributors

Jérôme Dupras

Jérôme Dupras is a professor et the Departement of natural sciences of the Université du Québec en Outaouais and researcher at the Institut des Sciences de la Forêt tempérée. His research focuses on the economic valuation of ecosystem services, the analysis of the relationship between the structure of ecosystems and their services production and land use planning and management.