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Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities

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A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 91306

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Anne WM Ng

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Science and Technology, Charles Darwin University, Darwin 0810, Australia
Interests: sustainable building and infrastructure; circular economy in civil engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Nitin Muttil

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Guest Editor

College of Engineering and Science, Victoria University, Melbourne 8001, Australia
Interests: urban water management; resilient urban water systems hydrologic and hydraulic modeling; hydroinformatics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq

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Guest Editor

College of Engineering and Science, Victoria University, Melbourne 8001, Australia
Interests: sustainable infrastructure; smart and climate-resilient buildings; water sensitive urban design; virtual water trade
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the effects of climate change becoming both more prominent and more noticeable, extreme rainfall events are becoming an inevitable reality. Additionally, in recent years, recorded data have shown that cities around the world will experience more heat waves. Such frequent events will increase the risk of hospitalisation for more people, which will obviously have a huge impact on existing hospital systems.

In order to mitigate the above problems, many applications of various green and/or blue infrastructure strategies have become more popular. However, these strategies come with many challenges and issues that limit their ability to mitigate the urban heat island effect and reduce heat stress, improve stormwater management, retard runoff attenuation, and enhance livability and wellbeing. These challenges include but are not limited to maintenance and costs (both long-term and short-term), implicit government support and regulations, safety of roof structural design and construction, roof leakage, clear standards and guidelines, and climate tolerate vegetation.

This Special Issue aims to share research findings from experts around the world on the applications of green and/or blue infrastructure to improve livability, mitigate the urban heat island (UHI), and reduce flooding. More specifically, the issue’s focus is on the challenges and issues that hinder the success of using green and/or blue infrastructure. This submission is not limited to the following:

Lessons learnt in various aspects in design, construct, and maintenance of green roofs, green walls, cool roofs and wetlands/pond;
Enhancement of livability using green and/or blue infrastructure;
Water sensitive urban design strategies;
Government policies and regulations on green and/or blue infrastructure.

Dr. Anne WM Ng
Dr. Nitin Muttil
Dr. Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

urban heat island
stormwater management
green infrastructures
liveability
green roofs
green walls

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 4176 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Evaluation of Large-Scale Green Roofs Based on Qualitative and Quantitative Runoff Modeling Using MUSICX

by Cuong Ngoc Nguyen, Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq, Dale Browne and Nitin Muttil

Water 2023, 15(3), 549; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15030549 - 30 Jan 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2712

Abstract

Green roofs (GR) are known as one of the most effective water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) strategies to deal with numerous environmental and social issues that urbanized cities face today. The overall quality of research on GRs has significantly improved and an increasing trend is observed in the amount of research over the last decade. Among several approaches, the application of modeling tools is observed to be an effective method to simulate and evaluate the performance of GRs. Given that studies on GRs at a catchment scale are limited, this paper aims to provide a simple but effective framework for estimating the catchment-scale impacts of GR on runoff quantity and quality. MUSICX, an Australian-developed software that possesses the advantages of a conceptual model, is chosen as the modeling tool in this study. While MUSICX has built-in meteorological templates for Australian regions, this tool also supports several climate input file formats for application by modelers in other parts of the world. This paper presents two different modeling approaches using the Land Use node and Bioretention node in MUSICX. The steps used for model calibration are also provided in this paper. The modeling results present the annual reductions in runoff volume, total suspended solid (TSS), total phosphate (TP), and total nitrogen (TN) load. The largest reductions of roughly 30% per year were observed in runoff volume and TN load. The annual runoff reduction rate reported in this study is close to that of other published results. Similar research outcomes quantifying the benefits of GRs play a major role in facilitating the widespread implementation of GRs due to the awareness of both positive and negative impacts of GRs. Future studies are recommended to concentrate on modeling the impacts of implementing GRs at a large scale (i.e., scales exceeding the single-building scale) to fill the research gaps and enhance the modeling accuracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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28 pages, 16733 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment of the Impact of Loss-of-Retention Fees on Green Infrastructure Investments

by Izabela Godyń, Krzysztof Muszyński and Agnieszka Grela

Water 2022, 14(4), 560; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14040560 - 12 Feb 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2896

Abstract

Urbanization leads to the growth of impervious surfaces, which increases surface runoff, causing pluvial and flash flood phenomena. Furthermore, it significantly limits the infiltration of stormwater into the ground; this, in turn, reduces groundwater supply, ultimately intensifying drought effects. In order to adapt urbanized areas to climate change, the objective is to stop these unfavorable processes and strive for recreating the natural water cycle through developing decentralized stormwater management practices on private properties. An important management instrument that motivates property owners to invest is economic incentives, such as stormwater or impact fees associated with a system of rebates/discounts that depend on the applied stormwater runoff reduction solutions. Herein, we analyze a new economic instrument—a fee for reducing natural field retention—which is planned to be introduced in Poland. We assessed the incentive and funding (income-generating) function of the fee based on the example of the Sudół river catchment in Krakow, Poland. The research involved conducting simulation calculations and assessing the incentive impact through calculating investment Net Present Value (NPV), which is the investor’s response to the proposed economic incentives included in the structure of the fee and the rebate system. This study demonstrated errors and loopholes in the suggested fee rules—too low rates that prevent achieving profitability (negative NPV) for small-scale stormwater retention practices, and incorrect conditions that enable obtaining discounted fees. We also estimated the fee rate that ensures investment profitability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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15 pages, 3609 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Culex Mosquitoes at Stormwater Control Measures and Combined Sewer Overflow Outfalls after Heavy Rainfall

by Alisha Yee Chan, Honghyok Kim and Michelle L. Bell

Water 2022, 14(1), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14010031 - 23 Dec 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3599

Abstract

Mosquito borne diseases are increasingly problematic as climate change continues to alter patterns of precipitation, flooding, and temperatures that may favor mosquito habitats. Stormwater control measures (SCMs), ecologically sustainable methods of stormwater management, may have varying impacts on Culex mosquitoes, such as in areas with combined sewer overflows (CSOs). We studied spatial and temporal associations of SCMs and Culex mosquito counts surrounding the SCMs, stratifying our examination amongst those that do/do not use pooling and/or vegetation, as well as surrounding CSO outfalls after heavy rainfall (≥95th percentile) during summer 2018. Results indicate Culex mosquito counts after heavy rainfall were not significantly different at SCMs that use vegetation and/or ponding from at those that do not. We also found a 35.5% reduction in the increase of Culex mosquitoes the day of, and 77.0% reduction 7–8 days after, heavy rainfall at CSO outfalls treated with medium SCM density compared to those without SCMs. Our results suggest that SCMs may be associated with a reduction in the increase of Culex mosquitoes at the CSO outfalls after heavy rainfall. More research is needed to study how the impacts of SCMs on mosquito populations may affect human health. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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Review

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40 pages, 7353 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Systematic Review on the Existing Research, Practices, and Prospects Regarding Urban Green Infrastructure for Thermal Comfort in a High-Density Urban Context

by Cheuk Yin Wai, Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq and Nitin Muttil

Water 2022, 14(16), 2496; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14162496 - 13 Aug 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4469

Abstract

Urban green infrastructures (UGI) have been suggested as a natural solution to tackle the problem of human thermal comfort as well as to reduce energy consumption in buildings under the pressures of rapid urbanization and global warming. However, the acceptance of UGI to mitigate the urban heat effect is not yet universal. The development of such an infrastructure is also not consistent across the regions, emphasizing the different objective parameters and methodologies. A systematic review has been conducted to analyze the published research work on UGI, targeting thermal comfort, in the past decade to identify the trends of UGI development around the world. The result shows that most of the studied locations were situated around the Mediterranean Sea region in a temperate climate, and most of the studied cities are within countries with a high gross domestic product, large urban area and urban population, primary energy consumption, and high greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions. Extensive green roofs are the most popular type of UGI and mostly use Sedum plants. In the published studies, experimental setups are the most common methods by which to collect data. EnergyPlus is the most popular software used to conduct energy analysis for buildings, whereas ENVI-met is more commonly used for microclimate analysis. These results indicated that the direction of UGI studies is driven by climate characteristics and the socioeconomic factors of geographical location, which favor low construction cost and maintenance needs, with a minimal irrigation requirement for small-scale UGI projects. Understanding the trend of UGI approaches for thermal comfort allows researchers to standardize practices that help the decision-making process for future researchers while recognizing the limitations and potential of current UGI practices. It is recommended that future studies should include arid and equatorial climate regions, with more focus on large-scale projects including high-rise building environments to comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of UGIs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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19 pages, 1330 KiB

Open AccessReview

Benefits, Inconveniences, and Facilities of the Application of Rain Gardens in Urban Spaces from the Perspective of Climate Change—A Review

by Joanna Bąk and Matthias Barjenbruch

Water 2022, 14(7), 1153; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14071153 - 3 Apr 2022

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 10047

Abstract

The need to support existing sewage systems is obvious due to the noticeable consequences of climate change, such as extreme rainfall, which is causing more urban flooding. It is believed that these phenomena will intensify in the long-term, and that sewage systems will be overloaded with stormwater. Consequently, cities will need more opportunities to protect themselves from flooding. Moreover, longer periods of drought will increase the temperatures in towns. The use of blue and green infrastructure is being used to adapt to climate change and to limit its effects in cities. However, it is important not to apply these solutions indiscriminately. They have obvious advantages, but are also limited in their uses. Facilities are also being developed for the design and construction of green infrastructure. This article presents the benefits of using rain gardens in urban spaces and in relation to other forms of blue–green infrastructure; it also explored the problems that may occur while using them. More important facilitations in the implementation of rain gardens into urban fabrics are discussed, particularly in the context of the existing inconveniences. A holistic approach to the issue was applied addressing technical, economic, environmental, and social aspects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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37 pages, 1408 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Quantifying the Benefits and Ecosystem Services Provided by Green Roofs—A Review

by Cuong Ngoc Nguyen, Nitin Muttil, Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq and Anne W. M. Ng

Water 2022, 14(1), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14010068 - 31 Dec 2021

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4762

Abstract

Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) has been widely used in cities to mitigate the negative consequences of urbanization and climate change. One of the WSUD strategies that is becoming popular is green roofs (GR) which offer a wide range of ecosystem services. Research on this WSUD strategy has been continuously increasing in terms of both quantity and quality. This paper presents a comprehensive review quantifying the benefits of GRs in papers published since 2010. More precisely, this review aims to provide up-to-date information about each GR benefit and how they have improved over the last decade. In agreement with previous reviews, extensive GRs were considerably researched, as compared to very limited studies on intensive and semi-intensive GRs. Each GR ecosystem service was specifically quantified, and an imbalance of GR research focus was identified, wherein urban heat- and runoff-related benefits were outstandingly popular when compared to other benefits. The results also highlight the recent introduction of hybrid GRs, which demonstrated improvements in GR performance. Furthermore, limitations of GRs, obstacles to their uptake, and inconsistent research findings were also identified in this review. Accordingly, opportunities for future research were pointed out in this review. This paper also recommends future studies to improve upon well-known GR benefits by exploring and applying more innovative GR construction techniques and materials. At the same time, further studies need to be undertaken on inadequately studied GR benefits, such as reduced noise and air pollution. In spite of the existence of reliable modelling tools, their application to study the effects of large-scale implementations of GRs has been restricted. Insufficient information from such research is likely to restrict large-scale implementations of GRs. As a result, further studies are required to transform the GR concept into one of the widely accepted and implemented WSUD strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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47 pages, 1055 KiB

Open AccessReview

Urban Wetlands: A Review on Ecological and Cultural Values

by Somayeh Alikhani, Petri Nummi and Anne Ojala

Water 2021, 13(22), 3301; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13223301 - 22 Nov 2021

Cited by 88 | Viewed by 36192

Abstract

Wetlands are a critical part of natural environments that offer a wide range of ecosystem services. In urban areas, wetlands contribute to the livability of cities through improving the water quality, carbon sequestration, providing habitats for wildlife species, reducing the effects of urban heat islands, and creating recreation opportunities. However, maintaining wetlands in urban areas faces many challenges, such as the reduction of hydrological functions, changed water regimes due to barriers, contamination by wastewater, habitat loss due to land-use change, and loss of biodiversity due to the entry of alien species. In this article, we review the theoretical background of wetlands in urban areas through the existing studies in the literature. We provide knowledge on urban wetlands and highlight the benefits of these wetlands in urban areas. These benefits include sustainability, biodiversity, urban heat islands, social perception, and recreation values. We also summarize the objectives, methodologies, and findings of the reviewed articles in five tables. In addition, we summarize the critical research gaps addressed in the reviewed articles. Our review study addresses the research gaps by performing a rigorous analysis to identify significant open research challenges, showing the path toward future research in the field. We further discuss and highlight the role of policymakers and stakeholders in preserving wetlands and finally present our conclusions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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22 pages, 1624 KiB

Open AccessReview

Green Infrastructure as an Urban Heat Island Mitigation Strategy—A Review

by Fatma Balany, Anne WM Ng, Nitin Muttil, Shobha Muthukumaran and Man Sing Wong

Water 2020, 12(12), 3577; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123577 - 20 Dec 2020

Cited by 106 | Viewed by 19063

Abstract

Research on urban heat mitigation has been growing in recent years with many of the studies focusing on green infrastructure (GI) as a strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of an urban heat island (UHI). This paper aims at presenting a review of the range of findings from GI research for urban heat mitigation through a review of scientific articles published during the years 2009–2020. This research includes a review of the different types of GI and its contribution for urban heat mitigation and human thermal comfort. In addition to analysing different mitigation strategies, numerical simulation tools that are commonly used are also reviewed. It is seen that ENVI-met is one of the modelling tools that is considered as a reliable to simulate different mitigation strategies and hence has been widely used in the recent past. Considering its popularity in urban microclimate studies, this article also provides a review of ENVI-met simulation results that were reported in the reviewed papers. It was observed that the majority of the research was conducted on a limited spatial scale and focused on temperature and human thermal comfort. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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19 pages, 5367 KiB

Open AccessReview

Approaches to Multi-Objective Optimization and Assessment of Green Infrastructure and Their Multi-Functional Effectiveness: A Review

by Jia Wang, Jiahong Liu, Hao Wang and Chao Mei

Water 2020, 12(10), 2714; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12102714 - 28 Sep 2020

Cited by 40 | Viewed by 5669

Abstract

Green infrastructure (GI) is a contemporary area of research worldwide, with the implementation of the findings alleviating issues globally. As a supplement and alternative to gray infrastructure, GI has multiple integrated benefits. Multi-objective GI optimization seeks to provide maximum integrated benefits. The purpose of this review is to highlight the integrated multifunctional effectiveness of GI and to summarize its multi-objective optimization methodology. Here, the multifunctional effectiveness of GI in hydrology, energy, climate, environment, ecology, and humanities as well as their interrelationships are summarized. Then, the main components of GI multi-objective optimization including the spatial scale application, optimization objectives, decision variables, optimization methods and optimization procedure as well as their relationships and mathematical representation are examined. However, certain challenges still exist. There is no consensus on how to measure and optimize the integrated multi-functional effectiveness of GI. Future research directions such as enhancing integrated multi-objective assessment and optimization, improving life cycle analysis and life cycle cost, integrating benefits of GI based on future uncertainties and developing integrated green–gray infrastructure are discussed. This is vital for improving its integrated multifunctional effectiveness and the final decision-making of stakeholders. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure: Current Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities)

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