Designing Green Infrastructure Guidelines: A Methodological

Approach

Andrea De Montis

1,2 a

, Giovanna Calia

1,2 b

Valentina Puddu

and Antonio Ledda

Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Sassari, Viale Italia 39A, 07100 Sassari, Italy

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari,

via Marengo 2, 09123 Cagliari, Italy

Keywords: Smart Cities, Smart Growth, Green Infrastructures Guideline, Planning and Design.

Abstract: Natural capital and biodiversity are in decline as consequence of human activities. To promote the

conservation of biodiversity and the achievement of sustainability goals, the European Commission proposes

the use of green infrastructures (GIs), which are networks of naturals areas aimed at the conservation of

ecosystems and providing ecosystem services in urban and peri-urban areas. Effective implementation of GIs

is hindered by institutional and behavioural barriers; thus, public administrations issue guidance documents

to steer GI planning, design, realization, and maintenance. Current guidance documents mainly contain

references to components of GI. The scientific literature lacks specific methods for the design of guidelines

concerning the implementation of GI. In this respect, we identify and propose a method for drafting up

guidelines aimed at GI planning and design in regional and local Italian contexts. The method is rooted in the

analysis and summary of scientific and grey literature and consists of six phases. The results of this study are

a first step for steering municipal and regional administrations at the development of GI guidelines tailored

for specific contexts.

1 INTRODUCTION

Urbanization and anthropogenic activities have led to

land consumption (Foley et al., 2005; Metzger et al.,

2006) triggering landscape fragmentation, loss of

habitat, and degradation of ecosystems, which

negatively affect natural capital and biodiversity in

several contexts (Helm, 2015; Maes et al., 2015;

Magaudda et al., 2020). In modern cities human

health can be negatively affected by pollution, high

temperature, and mental and physical stresses

(Kaluarachchi, 2021). Uncontrolled urbanization

leads to phenomena, such as the urban and sub-urban

sprawl, i.e. “the rapid expansion of the geographic

extent of cities and towns, often characterized by low-

density residential housing, single-use zoning, and

increased reliance on the private automobile for

transportation” (Rafferty, 2019 quoted by Ledda et

al., 2019). In this regard, the promotion of ‘compact

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3849-2595

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0624-8528

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2351-5544

cities’ –a “spatial urban form characterised by

‘compactness’” (OECD, 2012)- is a solution

commonly accepted by scholars and policy (Artmann

et al., 2019), although “[o]ne main constraint to

compact cities […] is the low proportion of urban

green spaces” (Artmann et al., 2019). However, green

spaces are key for delivering health benefits and

(Kaluarachchi, 2021).

At global level, Agenda 2030 sets 17 sustainable

development goals including guaranteeing life on

earth, fighting climate change, and sustainable cities.

The European Commission has released the European

Union Strategy (EU Strategy) for Biodiversity 2030

(European Commission, 2020) to address

consequences due to human activities. A Green

Infrastructure (GI) is considered as a strategic

solution to addressing these phenomena (Hermoso et

al., 2020; Valente et al., 2020). The European

Commission acknowledged the relevance of GI

156

De Montis, A., Calia, G., Puddu, V. and Ledda, A.

Designing Green Infrastructure Guidelines: A Methodological Approach.

DOI: 10.5220/0010440801560163

In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Smart Cities and Green ICT Systems (SMARTGREENS 2021), pages 156-163

ISBN: 978-989-758-512-8

defining it as “a strategically planned network of

natural and semi-natural areas with other

environmental features designed and managed to

deliver a wide range of ecosystem services”

(European Commission, 2013). A GI can be intended

as a redefinition of ecological network. While the

concept of ecological networks was mostly related to

the defragmentation of habitats and protection of

ecosystems, GI has both ecological functionality and

role related to social, cultural, and economic activities

involving human communities (Magaudda et al.,

2020). GI provides ecosystem services, meant as

interconnection of common benefits (Andreucci et

al., 2019), which arise from interactions and internal

processes of ecosystems that can increase people’s

wellbeing (La Notte et al., 2017). GI has also the

potential to promote smart growth (Artmann et al.,

2019). According to Artmann et al. (2019) “smart

growth is often used synonymously with compact

cities” and smart growth can be defined as “a process

to achieve compact cities as a sub-target of smart

cities” (Artmann et al., 2019).

In Italy, GI is mainly dealt with in documents that

include rules and references to the potential elements

that define a GI, such as ecological networks, public

parks, Natura 200 sites, forest areas, etc. (MATTM,

2013). Irga et al. (2017) claim that the adoption by

local councils of policy tools -such as guidelines

based on scientific literature- can increase the

successful implementation of GIs in more sustainable

cities. Despite its relevance, the inclusion of GI

within planning tools is still limited by (i) a scarce

understanding of the concept of GI, and (ii) the

complexity of planning processes concerning

environmental and social contexts (Lai et al., 2019).

In front of these barriers, national, regional, and

local administrations should issue specific guidance

documents for steering GI planning, implementation,

and maintenance. In this regard, methods for

designing guidelines (GI guidelines) are key to ease

the integration of GI principia, concepts, and best

practices in planning and programming tools.

Scientific literature lacks in research studies about

methods for drafting up guidelines focused on the

integration of GI in sectoral plans and programs.

Guidelines can be broadly defined as protocol

directions useful to translate into practice the most

critical elements concerning the legislative principles.

Guidelines allow practitioners to steer both

operational objectives and typical actions to be

developed for projects implementation. Several

scholars (Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-Mejía, 2019;

Klemm et al., 2018; Langemeyer et al., 2019) have

focused on the drafting of guidelines for the design of

GI-like ensembles.

The aim of this paper is at contributing to the

stream of scientific literature, which has scarcely

dealt with methods for drafting up guidelines

concerning the design of GI. Namely, this study

proposes a scientific method aimed at drafting GI

guidelines at sub regional scale in Italy. The method

is rooted in international scientific literature and

considers the best practices emerging from the grey

literature, i.e., Italian guidelines released at sub

regional scale, and is easily applicable in spatial

planning practice.

The paper unfolds as follows. Section 2 reports on

the methodological approach and it is divided into

two subsections concerning the state-of-the-art

summary and the scrutiny of GI guidelines released

in Italy (the so-called grey literature). The state-of-

the-art summary addresses the ever-increasing

importance of GI in the context of scientific literature

and points out the inclusion of GI in spatial planning

practice and emerging weaknesses. We consider the

grey literature to tailor the proposed method to the

Italian context. In Section 3, we present and describe

the findings, namely, the method for designing GI

guidelines. In Section 4, we discuss the findings by

stressing the main contribution of the study and

pointing out its main limitations. Finally, in Section 5

we summarize the innovative elements of this study

and remark its contribution to the scientific

panorama.

2 METHODOLOGICAL

APPROACH

The methodological approach consists of three steps:

(i) state-of-the-art summary concerning previous

research studies dealing with the design of GI

guidelines; (ii) collection of GI guidelines (on-line

search and selection); (iii) proposal of method for

designing GI guidelines.

The analysis and summary of previous

publications allow us to identify the main guidance

and critical issues that scholars point out and that

should be considered in the drafting of GI guidelines

or guidelines that consider components of GI. The

state-of-the-art summary provides the study with a

sound scientific basis (see the first step of the method,

in Section 2.1).

The collection and selection of GI guidelines

allow us to figure out the main scheme or rationale of

such documents (second step, Section 2.2). In other

Designing Green Infrastructure Guidelines: A Methodological Approach

157

words, the scrutiny of the grey literature is key to

tailor theoretical principia, suggestions, or guidance

to documents released in a real scenario. This is

important for making the method applicable in

practical arenas of regional or sub regional contexts

(Section 2.2).

In addition to the scrutiny of scientific and grey

literature, we consider key strategies issued at

international, European, and Italian level (UN, 2015;

European Commission, 2020; MATTM, 2017) that a

proposal of GI guidelines should refer to. In other

terms, the method proposed in this study explicitly

refers to strategies concerning GI or sustainability

objectives.

Finally, we distil the main advice and suggestion

emerging from scientific literature and tailor them in

respect to the rationale that generally characterize the

Italian guidelines released at local scale. Accordingly,

in Section 3, we propose the method for drafting up

GI guidelines, which is rooted in the contents of

Section 2.1 and 2.2.

2.1 State-of-the-Art Summary

Scientific literature includes studies that regard the

drafting of guidelines to design a specific GI or one

of its components (elements). Ibáñez Gutiérrez and

Ramos-Mejía (2019) studied the drafting of GI

guidelines for the design of green roofs in the urban

area of Bogotá (Colombia), with the purpose of

promoting the use of GI in local policies. The method

proposed by Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-

Mejía (2019) included: (i) analysis: study of scientific

and grey literature (guidelines and other documents);

(ii) sharing: discussion concerning the guidelines to

be written and the findings acquired from literature

and involvement of government actors; (iii) drafting

of draft guidelines; (iv) sharing: discussion and

verification with several stakeholders

(representatives of the local government, construction

industry, green roof entrepreneurs, designers and

environmentalists) and public meetings aimed at

acquiring everyone’s opinions; (v) revision of the

draft guidelines, which depends on the involved

actors’ observations; (vi) approval: achievement of

the widest possible consensus on a detailed and

definitive version of GI guidelines, according to a

multi-scale approach. Klemm et al. (2018) developed

guidelines for different contexts, according to a

methodological approach based on ‘Research through

design’, i.e., the authors wrote preliminary guidelines

and then asked professionals to incorporate such

preliminary guidelines into the planning processes.

The drafting of the guidelines included: (i) drafting of

preliminary guidelines -according to the scientific

literature- for designing GI aimed at the adaptation to

climate change in urban environment; (ii) integration

of the preliminary guidelines into the design

processes, in collaboration with professionals and

assessment of critical points; (iii) review and

improvement of the preliminary guidelines.

Langemeyer et al. (2019) pointed out that local policy

makers lack practical guidance related to the

promotion of green roofs. The authors performed a

spatial screening (or mapping) through a Multicriteria

Decision Analysis (MCDA) tool to figure out: (i)

where the green roofs should be built as a priority in

Barcelona and (ii) which type of green roof would

potentially optimize the provision of ecosystem

services in such areas. Therefore, Langemeyer et al.

(2019) proposed a spatial screening model that can be

easily adapted to steer municipalities in GI planning.

Lennon et al. (2015) focused on the integration of GIs

in planning processes, which require the involvement

of different stakeholders.

2.2 Scrutiny of the Grey Literature

Qualitative analysis of documents -such as guidelines

or guidance documents- have been applied in other

studies and proved to be useful (see Mascarenhas et

al., 2015 and De Montis et al., 2016). Given the

relevant role of public administrations, we have

scrutinized the so-called grey literature. The research

was performed by filtering the world wide web

through the Google search engine and the keywords

“guidelines”, “green infrastructures”, and “Italy”. We

considered: explicit guidelines or guidance

documents, guidelines for designing GI or their

potential components (such as urban green,

ecological networks), and current and adopted

guidelines in the Italian local contexts, i.e., cities or

provinces. We selected and scrutinized documents

eliciting: the geographical context, the objectives of

the project, and the guidance to the design of a GI.

Figure 1 shows the Italian metropolitan areas that

released guidelines aimed at the design of GI.

In 2007, the Provincial Council of Novara adopted

the guidelines for implementing the ecological

network; the guidelines are considered a tool for the

implementation of the Provincial Territorial Plan

(Provincial Council of Novara, 2007). The guidelines

address the planning of the ecological network by

developing five points: (i) why implement an

ecological network (objectives); (ii) where to

implement the ecological network; (iii) instruments to

be used; (iv) definition of time schedule; (v)

identification of the actors to be involved; vi) drafting

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of technical actions on the types of ecological

networks to be created.

In 2010, the Council of the Province of Turin

adopted the guidelines for the Green System, which

include a part attaining “guidelines for Ecological

Networks”. Such guidelines are mainly intended as

support to the municipal administrations for the

design of an ecological network that involves 35

municipalities (Council of the Province of Turin,

2010). The guidelines for Ecological Networks

include: (i) descriptive analysis of the ecological

network; (ii) prioritizing implementation objectives;

(iii) planning and design of the requalification of the

current ecological network; (iv) definition of the

operational guidance for implementing the actions in

practice; (v) maintenance of the ecological network.

In 2015, the Italian Institute for Environmental

Protection and Research (ISPRA, 2015) released the

guidelines for the Sustainable Urban Forestry in

Rome. The document aims at providing a technical

support to local administration decisions regarding

the design and construction of new forests in urban

and peri-urban areas (ISPRA, 2015). The guidelines

are designed in compliance with ecological,

environmental, social, and economic sustainability

issues, and are divided into two main parts: (i) design

phase, which includes the description of objectives,

choice of the geographical area of project destination,

definition of the design guidance, and choice of target

and vector species and of the propagation material;

(ii) implementation phase, which includes the

preparatory activities, plant, and first maintenance

plan.

In 2018, in the context of a meeting organized by

the Green City Network (Italy), guidelines for Green

Cities were published to encourage the green

development of Italian cities. The guidelines are

divided into four general objectives concerning

policies and measures aimed at promoting sustainable

cities. For each objective, guidelines have been

defined that contain policies and measures (Green

City Network, 2018).

Figure 1: Italian metropolitan areas that released guidelines aimed at the design of GI.

Designing Green Infrastructure Guidelines: A Methodological Approach

159

Table 1: Proposed method for the drafting of GI guidelines.

N Phase Description References

i State of the art

Analysis and summary of the scientific and grey

literature

Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-Mejía

(2019)

ii Context analysis

SWOT analysis on a specific context to define

objectives and actions

Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-

Mejía (2019); Langemeyer et al.

(2019)

iii Consistency check

Assessment of the consistency with respect to

sustainability objectives

UN (2015); European Commission

(2020); MATTM (2017)

iv Draft of GI guidelines

Draft of guidelines tailored to the specific geographical

and institutional context

Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-Mejía

(2019); Klemm et al. (2018);

Langemeyer et al. (2019)

Sharing the draft with

the stakeholders

Presentation of the draft to acquire views and

comments from interested parties

Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-Mejía

(2019); Klemm et al. (2018);

Langemeyer et al. (2019)

Approval of GI

guidelines

Institutional verification on the final contents of the GI

guidelines

Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-Mejía

(2019)

3 RESULTS: A METHOD FOR

DRAFTING UP GUIDELINES

FOR THE DESIGN OF GI

Based on the scientific contribution of Klemm et al.

(2017), Langemeyer et al. (2019) and Ibáñez

Gutiérrez and Ramos-Mejía (2019), and considering

key strategies released at international, European, and

Italian level (UN, 2015; European Commission,

2020; MATTM, 2017), we proposed the method

described in Table 1 for drafting up guidelines

concerning the design of GI in the context of spatial

planning. The method consists of six steps: (i)

analysis and summary of the scientific and grey

literature; (ii) SWOT analysis concerning a specific

geographical context to define objectives and actions

useful for implementing a GI; (iii) assessment of the

consistency among the guidelines and strategies

concerning GI and/or sustainability principia to

achieve (at least) national and European objectives;

(iv) draft of guidelines tailored to the specific

geographical and institutional context; (v) public

display of the draft to acquire views and comments

from interested parties; (vi) institutional verification

on the final contents of the GI guidelines.

The first phase addresses the inclusion of

references to previous scientific and guidance

(guidelines) documents (Ibañez Gutiérrez and

Ramos-Mejía, 2019). The bibliographic analysis is

useful to define a state-of-the-art summary

concerning GI in European and -specifically-

Mediterranean contexts. Such a summary contains

scientific information about GI, i.e., relevance, types,

ecosystem services provided by GI, and governance

issues. On the one hand, the state-of-the-art summary

provides a reference framework on GI. On the other

hand, the scrutiny of grey literature regards the

analysis of published documents such as guidelines

for the design of GI. The scrutiny of guidelines

allows planners to acquire information on document

structure, focus, main objectives, and actions.

The second phase concerns the analysis of the

territorial context, where the GI project will be

implemented (Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-Mejía,

2019). Context analysis describes factors related to

the GIs (environmental, economic, social, political

elements, etc.) that will be assessed in a SWOT

analysis in order to highlight the territorial critical

issues to be addressed through GI, by focusing on its

strength, and highlighting the opportunities and

threats of the area. The context analysis can be more

specific by following the method proposed by

Langemeyer et al. (2019) who suggest the

identification of priority areas in respect to critical

issues, by mapping the areas where certain ecosystem

services are required. The context analysis is a

descriptive approach and the first step to define the

areas that need to be included in a GI network.

The third phase concerns a consistency check. GIs

are considered a strategic tool for biodiversity

conservation and, therefore, for achieving

sustainability objectives (European Commission

2020). GI guidelines should be consistent with

objectives and actions set in international and national

programs and strategies published by UN (2015),

European Commission (2020), and MATTM (2017).

The analysis must highlight the sustainability

objectives that can be achieved through the

implementation of GI, in coherence with the highest-

level objectives, principia, and guidance (at European

scale at least). The GI project should meet the

objectives of Agenda 2030 and the European

objectives. Finally, the guidelines should be coherent

with regional plans and programs to be applied in

practice.

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The fourth phase regards the drafting of the

preliminary GI guidelines. In this phase, the findings

obtained from the scrutiny of the grey literature are a

core element in terms of objectives, annexes, in-depth

boxes, and regulatory tools.

The fifth phase concerns sharing the draft of

guidelines with different stakeholders (i.e.,

environmental engineers, architects, agronomists,

botanists, ecologists, etc.) to modify the technical

parts of the document, if it is required. Local

authorities must be involved to assess the consistency

of the draft guidelines with the current regulations.

Seminars and meetings with the public (citizens,

entrepreneurs, etc.) will also be useful to collect

opinions regarding the draft guidelines. Finally, the

inclusion of any changes aimed at improving the

guidelines will lead at the definitive version of the

document. In the last phase, the final version of the

guidelines is brought to the attention of the competent

institutional body for the approval process.

4 DISCUSSION

Outdated grey infrastructure characterize several

modern cities and “refurbishing these elements and

systems will provide an opportunity to incorporate

smart green components” (Kaluarachchi, 2021).

The importance of guidelines such as policy tools

for encouraging the promotion of GI at local and

regional scale has been stated in previous studies

(Irga et al., 2017). Italy lacks policy and legislation

concerning the design and planning of GI (Progetto

Interreg Central Europe MaGICLandscapes, 2019).

Then, this study aimed at proposing a method for

drafting up GI guidelines.

The proposed method allows planners to draw up

GI guidelines that can consider issues, such as climate

change, reduction of atmospheric pollution, and

sustainable cities. The three first phases listed in

Table 1 support the assessment of the environmental

priorities in each geographical area and the

identification of proper GIs, while the two last phases

concern the involvement of stakeholders who bring

their views into the drafting process. Finally, the GI

guidelines are approved by the competent bodies that

consider the findings obtained in the previous phases

of the drafting process.

Compared to Ibáñez Gutiérrez and Ramos-Mejía

(2019), this study does not refer just to a single

typology of GI (green roofs) but to the entire set of

potential elements (components) of GI (see also phase

iii). The proposed method is not limited to the

drafting and revision of the first draft guidelines such

as in Klemm et al. (2017). Indeed, it is supplemented

by further stages: summary of scientific and grey

literature and draft of the state-of-the-art (phase i),

SWOT analysis on a specific context to define

objectives and actions (ii), consistency check with

respect to sustainability objectives (iii), and draft of

specific GI guidelines (iv).

While Langemeyer et al. (2019) proposed a

method for drafting up a guide to planning just one

type (or component) of GIs, we propose a method that

include more elements, i.e., references to scientific

and grey literature (phase i) and the consistency check

(iii).

The findings of this research contribute to the

research progress concerning the drafting of GI

guidelines in Italy. Furthermore, this study provides a

method rooted in scientific basis and best practices,

which could be used at local (provincial or municipal)

level for the design of GI.

There are research gaps that need to be addressed

in future research. The proposed method is currently

applied in practice for the development of GI

guidelines for the Metropolitan City of Cagliari

(Italy). However, we cannot prove its full

effectiveness as the stakeholders’ views are missing,

and in an ongoing research we are focussing on such

an issue to fill this gap.

5 CONCLUSION

Italy lacks important policy tools to promote and

support GIs planning. Ad hoc guidelines could

encourage the diffusion of GI and steer cities towards

sustainability. In this study, we propose a method for

drafting GI guidelines for implementing GI in Italian

sub-regional contexts. We aimed at (i) providing

support and guidance to local administrations for

drafting up GI guidelines tailored to specific

geographical and institutional settings, and (ii)

promoting the use of GIs in planning processes.

The proposed method is currently applied to the

Metropolitan City of Cagliari, Sardinia (Italy) to

assess the effectiveness and implementation of the

proposed method in a local Italian context, and the

ease of practical implementation of the suggested

phases.

This study provides planners and local bodies

(i.e., provinces and municipalities) with a method for

drafting up GI guidelines. The proposed method is

going to be improved in future studies. However, we

feel the methodological approach proposed in this

study contributes to the scientific panorama as it is

one of the first attempt to provide the Italian planners

Designing Green Infrastructure Guidelines: A Methodological Approach

161

a method for drafting up GI guidelines rooted in

scientific basis.

As a concluding remark, in future research we will

investigate the effectiveness of planning and design

methodologies apt to integrate the GI guidelines as

part of the planning process. An important role in this

context can be played by the Strategic Environmental

Assessment (SEA), which is often part of the

planning process. SEA has potential for integrating

the contents of the GI guidelines in planning tools

such as regional or local spatial plans. In this regard,

SEA can contribute to explicitly consider GI in the

design of Green Cities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Authors are supported by the research project

“Paesaggi rurali della Sardegna: pianificazione di

infrastrutture verdi e blu e di reti territoriali

complesse [Rural landscapes of Sardinia: planning

green and blue infrastructures and spatial complex

networks]”, Regional Law n. 7/2007, Fund for

Development and Cohesion, Autonomous Region of

Sardinia. Giovanna Calia gratefully acknowledges

financial support of her scholarship for the Ph.D.

program in Civil Engineering and Architecture

(University of Cagliari) by P.O.R., F.S.E. Operational

Programme 2014-2020, Autonomous Region of

Sardinia. Andrea De Montis and Antonio Ledda are

supported by the University of Sassari through the

Fondo di Ateneo per la Ricerca [Academic funding

for research activities] 2020.

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