The role of green infrastructure in the sustainable city: A vision for Singapore

Abstract

Held in March 2014, a workshop hosted by the Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology in Singapore considered the potential for green infrastructure (GI) to integrate a range of sustainability initiatives and inform a comprehensive green plan for Singapore. GI is a system representing the ways in which nature can provide services for urban or rural populations. Such services include flood protection, improving air and water quality, addressing the needs of wildlife, and providing greenways for people to easily and safely move through their communities. GI includes urban forests and parks, wetlands, river corridors, green streets and roofs, road median strips and verges, schools, and nature reserves as well as all scales of vertical landscape (ASLA 2014).

The workshop was held in the context of the ENVision initiative by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) in early 2014, which sought contributions to a review of the 2009 Sustainable Development Blueprint from a wide cross section of Singapore society. The 2009 Sustainable Development Blueprint was released by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development (IMCSD) to “outline key targets and initiatives to improve resource efficiency and enhance Singapore’s urban environment for the next 10 to 20 years” (MEWR 2013).

Based on the feedback from ENVision, an updated version of the blueprint, Sustainable Singapore Blueprint 2015, was launched in 2014. The blueprint highlights the strategies and programmes needed for Singapore to achieve "both economic growth and a good living environment over the next two decades" (MEWR 2014).