From happier and healthier residents to more resilient buildings – green roofs offer significant benefits to cities.
Allowing residents to remove trees within three metres of buildings or ‘ancillary structures’ could dramatically alter the green infrastructure of dense inner Sydney suburbs like Rozelle.
Tom Casey/Shutterstock
Greater urban density is making it harder to preserve, let alone increase, tree cover. It’s vital, then, to demonstrate the full value of green infrastructure for healthy liveable cities.
As the population of the world’s cities grows, so too does resource and energy use as well as waste generation. We can combat these issues with a circular economy that uses nature as a template.
A shade tree makes a big difference to the comfort of this couple.
Nancie Lee/Shutterstock
Two trends in Australia, an ageing population and warming climate, are increasing the threat that heatwaves pose to our health. Increasing vegetation cover is one way every city can reduce the risk.
Urbanisation is the main reason for rising temperatures and water pollution, but receives little attention in discussions about the health of water streams, reefs and oceans.
Private finance crashed the economy and is too consumed by the profit motive to be a reliable ally against climate change. We should not allow COP24 to be their board meeting.
The Morris Inn on the University of Notre Dame campus has had a green roof since 2013.
Ashish Sharma
Taking this step may improve the quality of life for vulnerable people and reduce the amount of air conditioning they use, making their neighborhoods less prone to power outages.
It’s not all bad news at Bonn – with low carbon precincts, living infrastructure and urban networks, cities are leading the charge against climate change.
Stony Creek drain: untidy and often slightly threatening, informal green space still has value for residents, which appropriate intervention can enhance.
Residents often have concerns about informal green space but some still use it. Work to enhance these areas should aim to resolve these concerns without destroying what residents do value.
A drain carries water but does little else, but imagine how different the neighbourhood would be if the drain could be transformed into a living stream.
Zoe Myers
Drains take up precious but inaccessible open space in our cities. Converting these to living streams running through the suburbs could make for healthier places in multiple ways.
A public worker clears a storm drain in Carson City, Nevada.
Cathleen Allison/AP Photo
The US wants to invest in more infrastructure to handle our rainfall and melted snow. Stormwater credits could help cut costs and protect the environment.
Heavy storms in February caused parts of a California highway to give way.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo
The American Society of Civil Engineers gives US infrastructure a D+. What is it that we’re doing wrong?
The public and finance sectors – but not the government, it seems – are questioning the wisdom of investing in infrastructure for projects like the Adani coal mine.
Lukas Coch/AAP
If infrastructure is to meet the needs and challenges of an uncertain future, we need to move beyond the AAA ratings mindset and aim for net-positive social and ecological outcomes as well.
Whether it’s pressures of space or a warmer climate, which is affecting Melbourne’s elms, urban greening must respond to the challenges of 21st-century urban living.
Joe Castro/AAP
Greening cities that are becoming denser is a major challenge. City-dwellers’ health benefits from both well-designed green spaces and urban density, so we must manage the tensions between them.
For a small price, Donald Trump could score the easy win he’s been waiting for.
Upper Coomera is one of those fast-growing fringe suburbs that are hotter because of tightly packed housing with less greenery.
Daryl Jones/www.ozaerial.com.au/
Recently published research has found that the concentration of poorer people in hotter places is a real problem for cities’ capacity to cope with climate change.
After hitting parts of Haiti with winds of 145 miles per hour, Hurricane Matthew is moving toward the U.S.
Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters
As the U.S. braces for potential landfall of Hurricane Matthew, our experts weigh in on hurricanes, the need for resilient infrastructure and climate change.