Landscape in Green Infrastructures & Interscalar Planning

Abstract

The transversal and interdisciplinary quality of landscape makes it an essential and useful element in regional and local planning. On the other hand, Green Infrastructures provide an exceptional tool to put in relation different planning scales and offer new possibilities and functions for the design and management of open spaces. The Strategic Plan for the Calderona Mountain Range (Valencia province, Spain) shows how these two concepts: Landscape and Green Infrastructure can work hand in hand to construct a more sustainable and harmonic territory. The Plan defines a multifunctional Green Infrastructure with the aim to preserve and improve the ecological and visual quality of the territory and, at the same time, guide the future evolution of the agricultural, natural and urban areas. In order to fulfill these functions the work was structured in four stages. Firstly, the Landscape Characterization of the whole area (200 km2) permitted, after studying the existing patterns, resources and socio environmental processes, the definition of a system of Landscape Units and Landscape Resources which were, in a second stage, assessed through a public participation process (Landscape Assessment). Once the whole territory had been studied, the Strategic Plan formulates a set of Objectives and Strategies and in its fourth phase defines a set of ten thematic Plans regulating the most important activities and land uses. In this later stage, the “Landscape Plan” was given a leading role since it was guiding through the Green Infrastructure and through its determinations, the performance and evolution of most of the land uses and activities. The Green Infrastructure was primarily based in natural and human systems which could be very easily recognized and incorporated in it. In contrast, the addition of some connectors and specially, of some areas for the control and shaping of urban land, required a more intentional approach. Since the Calderona Mountain Range is part of a Natural Park, a high percentage of the whole territory, basically with a natural character, was included in the Green Infrastructure. In spite of their lower proportion, strategic agricultural areas proved to be a fundamental part of the Infrastructure for controlling urban sprawl. On the other hand, the most valuable open spaces in the urban and peri-urban contexts were essential to introduce the Green Infrastructure in towns, villages and housing estates through a capillary micro system including parks, squares and strategic streets.