TY - JOUR

T1 - Green infrastructure connectivity analysis across spatiotemporal scales

T2 - A transferable approach in the Ruhr Metropolitan Area, Germany

AU - Wang, Jingxia

AU - Rienow, Andreas

AU - David, Martin

AU - Albert, Christian

N1 - Funding Information: This work has been carried out at the Institute of Geography at Ruhr University Bochum. The study is supported by a start-up grant from Ruhr University Bochum for the Planning Metropolitan Landscapes (PLACES) lab led by C.A. The authors appreciate the Urban Atlas data provided by the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service and the OSM dataset offered by OpenStreetMapFund (OSMF). This article contributes to the Global Land Programme (GLP) Science Plan on the theme of Land Management Systems and to The Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS). We thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments contributed to enhancing the quality of this paper.

PY - 2022/3/20

Y1 - 2022/3/20

N2 - Developing green infrastructure (GI) has drawn increasing attention as a strategic planning approach for advancing urban sustainability. The connectivity of green spaces, a central principle of GI, has been considered in planning studies regarding its structure and functions for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services delivery; however, aspects of GI connectivity across temporal and spatial scales are rarely addressed. This paper aims to develop and apply a method for the GI connectivity analysis at multiple spatiotemporal scales. A transferable and multi-scale workable approach is presented to reveal the changes of structural and spatial heterogeneity of urban GI. Our method includes i) morphological spatial patterns analysis for central and green corridors recognition, ii) a graph-based quantification of GI connectivity based on the Conefor model, and iii) least-cost path analysis for identifying potential green corridors. We apply the GI connectivity analysis method in the Ruhr Metropolitan Area (RMA), one of Europe's largest agglomerations. We use spatial Urban Atlas data from 2006 to 2018. At the metropolitan scale, we find that GI connectivity in the RMA decreases 3.9% from 2006 to 2018, even though the general distributions of GI changes only slightly. With reference to the municipal scale from 2006 to 2018, four major types of GI connectivity changes were discovered in RMA's 15 cities, namely consistent decreasing, consistent increasing, increase followed by decrease, and vice-versa. Our findings provide new evidence on GI connectivity changes across a twelve-year difference and at metropolitan and municipal scales, as well as the identification of priority areas for increasing GI connectivity. It provides insights on the evolving and heterogenous nature of GI connectivity in support of decision-making for more sustainable metropolitan development for people and nature.

AB - Developing green infrastructure (GI) has drawn increasing attention as a strategic planning approach for advancing urban sustainability. The connectivity of green spaces, a central principle of GI, has been considered in planning studies regarding its structure and functions for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services delivery; however, aspects of GI connectivity across temporal and spatial scales are rarely addressed. This paper aims to develop and apply a method for the GI connectivity analysis at multiple spatiotemporal scales. A transferable and multi-scale workable approach is presented to reveal the changes of structural and spatial heterogeneity of urban GI. Our method includes i) morphological spatial patterns analysis for central and green corridors recognition, ii) a graph-based quantification of GI connectivity based on the Conefor model, and iii) least-cost path analysis for identifying potential green corridors. We apply the GI connectivity analysis method in the Ruhr Metropolitan Area (RMA), one of Europe's largest agglomerations. We use spatial Urban Atlas data from 2006 to 2018. At the metropolitan scale, we find that GI connectivity in the RMA decreases 3.9% from 2006 to 2018, even though the general distributions of GI changes only slightly. With reference to the municipal scale from 2006 to 2018, four major types of GI connectivity changes were discovered in RMA's 15 cities, namely consistent decreasing, consistent increasing, increase followed by decrease, and vice-versa. Our findings provide new evidence on GI connectivity changes across a twelve-year difference and at metropolitan and municipal scales, as well as the identification of priority areas for increasing GI connectivity. It provides insights on the evolving and heterogenous nature of GI connectivity in support of decision-making for more sustainable metropolitan development for people and nature.

KW - Ecological connectivity

KW - Ecosystem services

KW - Land use policy

KW - Sustainability

KW - Urban geomorphology

KW - Urban regeneration

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122097956&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152463

DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152463

M3 - Article

C2 - 34952053

AN - SCOPUS:85122097956

VL - 813

JO - Science of the Total Environment

JF - Science of the Total Environment

SN - 0048-9697

M1 - 152463

ER -