Introducing Green Infrastructure into Urban Policy Documents – The Case of Croatian Cities

Abstract

More and more cities are coping with the challenges of unsus­tainable urbanization, degradation, loss of natural capital, climate change, and increased risk of natural disasters. Green infrastructure (GI) and espe­cially urban green infrastructure (UGI) could have a key role in dealing with these development issues. The main goal of the paper is to evaluate the role of GI in development strat­egies, both on national and local levels. The role of GI as a policy tool is ana­lyzed. In addition to national development strategies, the paper reviews the development strategies of several Croatian cities. The four biggest and most developed cities are selected: Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, and Osijek. As the most developed cities in economic terms, they are expected to base their develop­ment on new development patterns, including GI. The paper is structured as follows. After presenting GI and the literature re­view, the third section discusses national regulation and urban policy doc­uments related to GI. The final section presents some conclusions and some proposals for future research agenda.