Green infrastructure (GI) is currently experiencing rapid growth. This covers a variety of forms of urban and peri-urban agriculture, such as vertical farming, greenhouse rooftops, local foodsheds, which together with green spaces like parks and green roofs, can potentially makes cities more resilient to climate change and more sustainable. Yet, often various types of green infrastructures are promoted equally in urban sustainability agendas, without clear evidence on the effectiveness of one or another system and/or mix of systems better serving sustainability goals of a city, including targets for water and energy management, air quality, human well-being, climate change and biodiversity.
This session invites short contributions that enhance the understanding of the environmental impacts and resource constraints on the wider urban metabolism of GI systems, from an integrated or systemic perspective. The session is open to studies dealing with multiple urban challenges (including from an geographical, climate, urbanism, justice and policy perspective), policy objectives (such as reducing urban carbon footprint, recovering nutrients from waste) and resource trade-off management strategies (e.g. water and energy balances in urban agricultural systems).

We invite studies from different disciplines and scales of analysis, including integrated decision support tools, metabolism modelling approaches, life cycle assessments, ecosystem service assessments, as well as approaches that integrate participatory assessment methods with quantitative assessment of benefits and impacts of GI to provide guidance for policy and planning.