Towards applying a green infrastructure approach in the Gauteng City-Region

Book excerpt: In the context of heightened climate variability, thinking about ways to redesign our urban areas with more sustainable infrastructure solutions is becoming more and more important. Green infrastructure (GI) is emerging as an alternative approach to traditional (‘grey’) infrastructure in urban planning and development. Its emergence can be understood in terms of the growing demand for infrastructure and services, increased concerns over natural resource constraints and climate change, and the negative impacts associated with traditional approaches to designing and building cities. It has been proposed that GI can provide the same services as traditional infrastructure at a similar capital cost, while also providing a range of additional benefits. However, despite the increasing examples of successful urban GI applications, traditional infrastructure continues to dominate due to the lack of systematic evidence to support GI implementation. As a result, there has been an increase in calls from policy- and decision-makers for a greater evidence base on the benefits of GI, as well as for practical guidelines on its implementation. ‘Towards applying a green infrastructure approach in the Gauteng City-Region’ is the GCRO’s third report in its ongoing research into 'Green assets and infrastructure'. The first two reports in this project series were more theoretically grounded and policy-oriented, whereas this third report is more practical in nature. The first report explored the basic principles around GI, assessed the extent of ecological features in Gauteng and the way governments in the province think about planning and maintenance of green assets. The second report responded to some of the challenges identified in the first report, and in particular the importance of government officials and practitioners in exploring how international green infrastructure plans could be applied in the Gauteng context. This third report builds on the findings of the aforementioned reports and the project’s CityLab series, which highlighted the need to build an evidence base as critical for garnering support for and as well as enhancing investment in the GI approach. Unlike the more theoretically grounded earlier reports, this report comprises four technical sections and practical reflections on how a GI approach could be incorporated into urban planning in the GCR and in other similar urban contexts.