“Green Infrastructure“ can be described as a planned grid of green and open spaces, which fulfil different functions. These include the recreational function, the improvement of biodiversity, the purification of air and water, flood protection, rain water management, adaption to climate change among others by reducing urban heat islands and regulating the water balance. Furthermore this grid of green and open spaces can contribute to a high quality of life, to improving public health and wellbeing and to providing attractive path networks for pedestrians and cyclists.

Spatial planning is the key to creating the necessary basic conditions for fulfilling these important functions proactively and according to plan. The basic conditions include defining respective strategies, goals and measures on the supra-local and local level of spatial planning, such as securing the needed areas of land in regional spatial planning programs, local development concepts and land use plans as well as making design measures more concrete on the level of the building regulation plan.

For further information please contact Univ.-Prof. Dr. Gernot Stöglehner, Ass.-Prof. Dr. Walter Seher and DI Paul Himmelbauer.

Exemplary Publications

Leitfaden „Grüne Bauweisen für Städte der Zukunft“ – Optimierung des Wasser- und Lufthaushalts urbaner Räume mittels Gründächern, Grünfassaden und versickerungsfähigen Oberflächenbefestigungen. http://www.gruenstadtklima.at/download/leitfaden_GSK.pdf