The Nordic countries are known for their green cities, full of accessible green and blue spaces and surrounded by agricultural land, vast forests and lakes. These green and blue non-built up environments have the potential to offer a wide variety of supporting, regulating, provisioning ecosystem services and preserving cultural heritage.
More precisely, Green Infrastructure is a multifunctional network that facilitates the adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, promotes human health and wellbeing, and enhances biodiversity. Strategic planning of land and water areas is necessary to ensure a coherent Green Infrastructure beyond the urban/rural divides. How do we achieve that? Nordregio has studied policy approaches and actions that facilitate Green Infrastructure (GI) in the ESPON countries as part of the GRETA project. The main findings for the Nordic countries are summarised in this Policy Brief. The aim is to support decision-making processes and political action towards a GI approach. We make recommendations on how to utilise the multifunctional concept of GI in planning processes and outline the kind of added value it could bring to the Nordic countries.
