Assessing the Lifecycle Environmental Resilience of Urban Green Infrastructures Coping with Acute Disturbances and Chronic Stresses

Abstract

Urban green infrastructure (UGI), a key component of nature-based solutions (NbSs), plays a vital role in enhancing urban resilience. Nonetheless, the absence of a thorough resilience evaluation for UGI has hindered the efficacy of its design and implementation. This article proposes an innovative urban environmental resilience index (ERI) framework designed to evaluate the lifecycle performance of UGI. First, a coupled environmental resilience evaluation system is proposed that encompasses indicators for the adaptation to acute disturbances and the mitigation of chronic pressures. Second, the inventive formulas for calculating the environmental resilience index are presented, which establish the weighting of indicators through Delphi-analytic hierarchy process (AHP) analysis, and the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM), GaBi, and i-Tree models are employed for the quantitative assessment. Third, four representative UGI scenarios in urban built-up areas have been selected for comparative analysis and in-depth discussion by calculating the resilience index. This research presents UGI solutions as adaptive measures for “Black Swan” events and “Gray Rhino” phenomena, offering significant case studies and methodological frameworks which will inform future endeavours in green and sustainable urban development.