Greenprinting: Urban Planning for Ecosystem Services

Abstract

Cities are faced with multiple challenges in the twenty-first century, from rapid urban growth to climate change. This chapter discusses how to plan for and implement nature-based solutions in cities, presenting techniques to incorporate nature into urban landscapes, which we call “greenprinting.” Urban greenprinting refers to planning how natural habitats or natural features (e.g., street trees, parks, open space, constructed wetlands) can be protected, restored, or created to maximally protect biodiversity and enhance human well-being. This chapter presents four main environmental problems facing cities, which are often the motivation for conducting a greenprint analysis: concerns about health, climate change impacts, stormwater management, and biodiversity maintenance. We then focus on ecosystem services in an urban context, describing which ones are often key for greenprints and the characteristic scales at which they operate. Ecosystem services, like all common or public goods, are underprovided by free markets, providing strong justification for governments to intervention to insure their adequate provision. Next, we present a five-stage process for urban greenprint analyses. We end by discussing a case study from Melbourne.