Linking hydrological and bioecological benefits of green infrastructures across spatial scales – A literature review

Abstract

Green infrastructure (GI) mitigates the negative effects of urbanization and provides hydrological and bioecological benefits. However, these benefits are highly scale-dependent because the processes involved vary at different spatial scales; there are thus additional challenges in GI planning when multiple benefits are targeted. Therefore, it is necessary to review and summarize the theoretical understandings and practical experience obtained from previous studies and projects related to the hydrological and bioecological benefits of GI practices. In this review, we elaborate the conceptual linkages between the hydrological and bioecological benefits of GI practices across different scales. Smaller-scale benefits lay the foundation for larger-scale benefits. Hydrological benefits drive bioecological benefits by providing consistent water flows and maintaining a suitable soil environment. Bioecological benefits in turn enhance hydrological benefits by increasing water uptake and filtration via more active biological processes. We next summarize the study area sizes of existing studies and categorize them according to their study approaches and targeted benefits. The study area sizes in studies that make use of laboratory experiments, numerical modeling, and remote sensing have increased in recent years and vary greatly between each type of study; the study area size in studies of bioecological benefits was larger than in studies of hydrological and water quality benefits. However, there is a research gap in studies of bioecological benefits at the catchment scale. Furthermore, we summarize the major research topics and findings of bioecological benefits of GI practices at different spatial scales. We conclude this review with recommendations for future research, which include performing more studies at the catchment scale, developing hydro-bioecological statistical relationships to simplify the quantification of bioecological benefits, and developing databases to document the bioecological benefits of GI practices.