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Introduction

City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) wished to develop the Green Blue Network, aiming for carbon neutrality by 2030 and enhanced urban resilience. The project integrated nature-based solutions, improved ecosystem services, and created a connected network of green and blue spaces. Using advanced GIS and geospatial analysis, we combined baseline data on environmental assets, climate risks, active travel, and social factors. Supporting Edinburgh’s Cityplan 2030 and City Vision 2050, the study identified opportunities to enhance health, wellbeing, and sustainability through a comprehensive approach to urban planning.

Challenges

Edinburgh City Council wished to optimise its urban environment with a blue green network, to enhance multiple ecosystem services. It needed a clear way to understand where demand and opportunity existed citywide, for several vectors in a single location.

Solutions

We identified data sets, collated and analysed, to create a city-wide comparison of ecosystem service demand and supply for carbon sequestration, air quality, noise pollution, surface water flow separation, recreation, and habitat connectivity. Where previously these ecosystems services had to be analysed separately, the new methodology allowed an apples-to-apples simultaneous comparison. The analysed layer could be presented intuitively within an interactive map, enabling opportunity areas to be easily identified and included as CityPlan development areas.

Results

City managers can now take investment and legal steps to protect and enhance Scotland’s capital, via an intuitive and comprehensive mapped visualisation.

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The directory is brought to you by the Digital Task Force for Planning, a not-for-profit organisation. Our ambition is to promote digital integration and advancement in Spatial Planning to tackle the grand challenges in the 21st Century.
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