Urban Green&Blue infrastructure and global warming

Summary

The course introduces the concept of green and blue urban infrastructure in the context of global warming. It presents knowledge, concepts, and methods for planning, developing, and maintaining an effective network of green and blue infrastructure in urban areas.

Content

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Keywords

Green and blue infrastructure, nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, climate change, resilient cities, and biophilic design.

Learning Prerequisites

Required courses

The course has no prerequisites. However, a good understanding of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and a good command of QGIS will be an asset. Some of the lectures will be given in French with teaching summary in English.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

• Define the concept of green and blue infrastructures and their contribution to cities' adaptation to climate change.
• Analyze the type, density and distribution of green and blue infrastructure in an urban area.
• Design a strategic plan to develop an ecologically, economically and socially efficient urban network of green and blue infrastructure.
• Apply good practices for designing, building, maintaining and evaluating different urban green and blue infrastructure networks.
• Assess / Evaluate the state and availability of ecosystem services provided by green and blue infrastructure in a given area.

Transversal skills

• Set objectives and design an action plan to reach those objectives.
• Plan and carry out activities in a way which makes optimal use of available time and other resources.
• Identify the different roles that are involved in well-functioning teams and assume different roles, including leadership roles.
• Use a work methodology appropriate to the task.

Teaching methods

An interactive course combining theoretical approaches, case studies, field trips,and practical exercises.

Expected student activities

The course is based on group work and requires regular attendance and active class participation. Thus, students are expected to read the course bibliography and prepare practical case studies for individual and group exercises.

Assessment methods

Assessment during the semester:

40% mid term individual in-class test

60% Group project with individual work (20%) and group work (40%)

Supervision

Office hours	No
Assistants	Yes
Forum	Yes
Others

Resources

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)

No

Bibliography

• Metro Vancouver, (n.d): Connecting the dots. Regional green infrastructure network resource guide. Diamond Head Consulting Ltd, Ecoplan International and Calypso Design, for Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (available Online)

• House, E., C. O'Connor, K. Wolf, J. Israel, & T. Reynolds. (2016). Outside our Doors: The benefits of cities where people and nature thrive. Seattle, WA: The Nature Conservancy, Washington State Chapter, 28 p (available online).

• Hansen, R., Rall, E., Chapman, E., Rolf, W., Pauleit, S. (eds., 2017). Urban Green Infrastructure. Planning: A Guide for Practitioners. GREEN SURGE (available online).

Ressources en bibliothèque

• Outside our Doors: The benefits of cities where people and nature thrive / House et al.
• Connecting the dots. Regional green infrastructure network resource guide / Metro Vancouver
• Urban Green Infrastructure. Planning: A Guide for Practitioners / Hansen et al.

Notes/Handbook

Course materials

Documents, articles, case studies, and exercises will be distributed throughout the semester.

Moodle Link

• https://go.epfl.ch/ENV-462