Using different levels of information in planning green infrastructure in Luanda, Angola

Abstract

Integrating natural processes to build areas through the creation of green infrastructure (GI) in Africa with its rapid urbanisation is a challenge because of the information base. The aim of this paper is planning a GI linking biophysical, social, and legal contents in a specific Africa country with an approach that combines different scales and different levels of data and information. The paper proposes a framework beginning at the macro scale to integrate and operationalise the definition of GI in an African context, namely for the Luanda metropolitan area. The approach to nature and ecological structure (GI) has four phases: analysis, integration, diagnosis and proposal. All steps are developed in a GIS environment and consider variations in the biophysical, social, cultural, and legal dimensions. The research discusses the problems in collecting existing information and leads with missing data within the context of urbanisation growth and climate change adaptation. The proposed green infrastructure includes protected areas (existing and proposed), natural values, risk areas, rivers, and agricultural areas, to increase resilience and flexibility in an adaptation context. The results allow to include in the GI the mangrove areas, native flora, vegetated slopes, and riverbanks, providing a buffering function for natural hazards, crucial for these regions, with the aim to achieve the needs of creating a strategic GI to be implemented into the Luanda General Master Plan.